We were very fortunate to work with PAUSE, a mental health support hub in Birmingham City Centre, run by The Children’s Society. It is for anyone experiencing difficulties or who just wants to talk things through, up to the age of 25.

Their amazing Hub Squad, a group of young people supported by the hub, wanted to create some small plays to perhaps take around the schools in the area. Our artistic director Samuel Bossman was commissioned to go in and facilitate that process. This led to three new shorts, devised by the young people and written by Samuel Bossman, to be used by the charity at their discretion.

Following this success, our artistic director Samuel Bossman was again invited to facilitate a new short film for the young people. Once again to be devised by them, the prevailing idea (amongst dragons and various things that would require a Hollywood budget to support) was to create something inspired by Harry Potter, using the idea of being a part of the Squad and a young person as a level of wizardry. Together with Chris Jackson, a Brummie videographer who worked on our New Writing Nights, we put together a script that could accomplish this. Once finished the film could then be used as an advert by the charity. The amazing young people pitched in as the actors and we had a brilliant piece of work to show off their creative skills that you can see below.

PAUSE: The Children's Society

Community Work

National Youth Theatre

A new venture for the NYT in Birmingham, our artistic director Samuel Bossman was hired by the NYT as an associate artist, specialising in writing and devising. Taking place at the legendary Old Rep Theatre and working alongside Lauren O’Rourke, Lorna Nickson Brown and Ebenezer Bamgboye. This again allowed us to develop our skills in developing how new work can be created, as well as inspiring a new generation of actors to be able to create their own work.