The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury Reopens With a Performance From its Youth Company

The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury has opened its doors to an audience for the first time since it temporarily closed in March, with a powerful performance by its youth company and community participants about life during lockdown.

Called Opening Up, the project saw participants share pieces of theatre, dance and visual arts in different spaces across the building, all of which explored their own experiences and stories of life during lockdown. With performances that were in turn amusing, poignant and tragic, the pieces were the participants' own creative responses to the many different impacts that the pandemic has had on young people and their loved ones over the last six months.

Opening Up was devised during workshops that have taken place online since April. Running throughout the height of the pandemic, The Marlowe team believed it was essential to keep its popular Youth Company and creative workshops going, so to ensure that young people and adults in Kent still had access to a creative life during the period of lockdown.

Stories that were told as part of Opening Up included; the importance of having a catch-up over a cuppa, dealing with heartbreak in lockdown and baking cherry scones as a way to cope - with all of the pieces presenting a microcosm of life during this unprecedented time.

The performance ended with all of the participants standing on The Marlowe's main stage, the first performers to do so since March. Socially distanced, they then removed their masks and took a collective breath, before the curtain fell.

The Marlowe's Associate Director (Learning and Participation) said: "the online sessions led by our amazing creative practitioners kept creativity alive for all of our Company members across Kent. Each participant had real agency in deciding what they wanted to create and how they wanted to present it. Everyone was treated as an artist and the body of work across the groups is an inspiring record of their time in lockdown."

Chris, a member of The Marlowe's Youth Company who performed in Opening Up said, "it was quite emotional seeing everyone and walking onto a stage again. It was such a happy feeling being able to share our pieces with actual audiences. You get that overwhelming feeling of adrenaline when performing and it felt so good to be back."

Opening Up was performed as part of The Marlowe's Love Your Theatre weekend, a free programme of events that saw nearly 2,000 people enjoy free performances over the bank holiday weekend.