New Vic Youth Theatre explore the challenges of growing up

Featuring a large cast and full young band, this electrifying gig-style performance marks the New Vic Youth Theatre’s fourth time performing as part of National Theatre Connections.

Set in and around a swimming pool, The Changing Room follows a group of teens full of excitement, impatience and uncertainty, each with their own secret worries and desires for what comes next, as they teeter on the cusp of growing up.

Tackling big questions like “When are we ready to take the plunge into adulthood?” this joyful show is for anyone who has ever been a teenager. It’s about bodies in flux and perspectives shifting; knowing change is coming, but not being sure what that change will look like. Are we teenagers? Are we children? What are we?

Each year the National Theatre commissions ten new plays for young people to perform, bringing together some of the UK’s most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. It gives the New Vic Youth Theatre the opportunity to work on a thrilling piece of new writing, joining 300 youth theatre companies and over 5,000 young people from across the UK in producing a Connections play.

Director Katherine Hughes spent a weekend at the National Theatre working with an established director and writer to workshop the musical before deciding on her approach with the Youth Theatre. She said: “Young people can sometimes feel that they are the only ones who experience the world as they do. Sometimes it can be difficult opening up. This play allows us to examine the world of teenagers. The topics are universal: the journey from childhood to adulthood, what you gain, and what you leave behind. It gets us to think about our own lives, and the lives and experiences of those around us. I would encourage people to come and experience the joy and togetherness you can get from a gig theatre show.”

The Changing Room takes to the stage at the New Vic on Tuesday 25 February 2020. Tickets are on sale now, priced at £9.50, from the New Vic Theatre Box Office and can be booked by calling 01782 717962.