Zest Theatre Celebrates 10th Anniversary this November

This November, Zest Theatre will be celebrating their 10th anniversary of creating work for, with and by young people. Over the past ten years, the company has toured seven new productions as well as working extensively with teens, including young offenders, through workshops and outreach. In this time, they've reached over 130,000 young people across the country with nearly 1500 performances and 800 workshops.

The company was founded by Toby Ealden in 2007 following his work as youth theatre director for Nacro, the national crime reduction charity. Toby said, "I realised the barriers that stop many young people accessing the arts through some of our earliest work, barriers such as cost, belief that theatre is too posh for them, or worrying what they're friends might think of them. Zest's story is one that started at the smallest of grassroots levels with schools tours and hundreds of hours running arts projects in the community. But this was my apprenticeship, it was in those years that I honed my craft and, most importantly, got to know Zest's audience. It was those community projects that made me realise that there are young voices in our society that need to be heard and Zest could become part of the answer to provide those opportunities. We've continued that mission today."

Zest's first project, Two To Tango, was a remounting of a Nacro Theatre Education piece about the differences in what people say and what they feel. Since then, they've immersed teens in a house party experience using Silent Disco technology (Gatecrash), worked with Lincoln City Tobacco Control Board to create an interactive DVD about the consequences of smoking (Choked Up), and most recently worked with psychologist Dr Roger Bretherton to create a show about Post Traumatic Growth (Thrive).

Zest is currently working with Half Moon Theatre on their latest production, What Once Was Ours, which is a part scripted, part verbatim show about young people's attitudes to Brexit taken from interviews with over 200 participants. The teenagers were from four areas of Britain: Barnsley and Boston, who voted to Leave the EU, and Newcastle and Tower Hamlets, who voted Remain. The production will be touring the UK from 5th October.

Toby said, "One of our biggest achievements in these ten years is having created so much varied work! The shows in big, well known venues are brilliant, but sometimes the most worthwhile work is in the smallest of venues or when you are performing outdoors, in the rain, in a town you've never heard of before. Zest is about people and building communities, so I'm most proud of the wide network we've created and the communities that have been impacted by a visit from Zest."

The company's outreach work has included 2030, a collaboration with North East Lincolnshire Council and CapeUK that helped young offenders find ways to face the future with creativity and self-belief. The programme was commissioned to find more effective ways of working with children, young people and families, and resulted in a fully produced promenade production telling the stories of each participant. In addition, their Summer Challenge works to unlock the creativity of young people and to create the key concept for their next show, and for seven years their youth theatre company Neon created shows and short films by young people.

Trish Leivesley, Youth Offending Team Leader at North East Lincolnshire County Council, who worked with the company earlier this year said, "The work Zest has done with our young people has been so empowering for them. These are young people who are disengaged and who have never experienced the arts at all - it just isn't on their radar. Zest worked intensely with care, compassion and a real sense of heart to create something that was a true reflection of their lives; most importantly they didn't try to sanitise, filter or impress the audience, but treated the young peoples' stories and experiences with a weight and respect that you don't often see. This experience will stay with them for a long time."

Learn more at zesttheatre.com.

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