Intermission Youth Theatre was set up in 2008 to help young Londoners from socio-economically disadvantaged and 'at risk' backgrounds to transform their lives, giving them the tools to make positive choices to become the best version of themselves.
Each year we take 25 young people onto our Youth Theatre programme to mentor, support and empower them.
Over the past decade, more than 100 young people from different nationalities, faiths and London boroughs, have been impacted through Intermission Youth Theatre.
IYT has helped them grow in confidence and raise their aspirations. Many graduates have gone on to study at London's leading drama schools and become professional actors. They have performed with major national theatre companies including Shakespeare's Globe, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), as well as in TV, commercials and films. Graduate Tosin Cole features in the new Doctor Who series as one the new Doctor's companions, which is due to be broadcast by the BBC this autumn.
Our Community Engagement programme goes into schools, referral units and young offenders' services, using drama and Shakespeare workshops to provoke unique peer-to-peer discussion and debate on contemporary issues relevant to its audience. Set up in 2013, it has engaged with over 6,000 young people and is an approved theatre partner of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Associate Schools Programme.
Intermission Youth Trustee Sir Mark Rylance says: "Intermission Youth Theatre is the most exciting young people's theatre company I have ever witnessed. Not only are their productions witty and original, but you feel they are using Shakespeare to reveal their own culture of youth growing up in London today."
Award-winning actress and IY Patron Naomie Harris says: "For young, disadvantaged people, the arts are particularly beneficial because they provide a platform for self-expression, enable young people to gain a wider perspective of the world and reflect back their own experiences, which helps them to feel validated and not alone."
For media enquiries, please contact info@intermission.org.uk
