Act Up 2025 Evaluation

Following the success of our youth theatre Word Lounge Theatre Company for care experienced children, young careers or young people with additional needs, Women & Theatre launched Act Up, in spring 2025,  a series of drama workshops for young people from the same groups aged 18 – 25. Following a successful recruitment drive we engaged 20 young people over an 8-week programme.  

Participants were a mixture of young people who had previously worked with the company and those who were new to Women & Theatre. 

The 8-week programme consisted of theatre based skills workshops, each session focusing on a different performance skill or masterclasses which supported their further creative development. Women & Theatre believe everyone has the capacity to make art and be creative, and as with all our projects, participants’ imaginations were at the centre of Act Up, meaning the participants heavily influenced the focus of the sessions and the style in which they were delivered.

Led by our Artistic Director Adaya Henry and Associate Director Vicky Pritchard, supported by a team of 3 freelance support artists, a weekly guest practitioner, a volunteer and additional support from W&T core team, Act Up upskilled the participants in a range of multi-disciplinary practices, taking autonomy over their ideas, raising self-esteem, deepening their relationships with each other and with the company.

Our 3 target groups for this project were young people with additional needs, care experienced young people and young carers of the 20 young people we worked with:

100% of the group had additional needs

40% were care experienced

5% were young carers

For many years we have been running Word Lounge Theatre Company, a regular programme where young people are able to work with professional theatre makers to devise a new piece of theatre performed for the public. Many of the young people who joined the programme as children are now over the age of 18 and it was becoming difficult to include such a broad range of ages, mainly on the grounds of safeguarding but also due to volume and having space to bring in new participants.  We could see that one of the key reasons young people wished to stay was the lack of arts and theatre provisions for young people aged 18 – 25, particularly that was both affordable and truly accessible (accepting that the bulk of these participants had additional needs), there just wasn’t the opportunity to easily move them onto something new.  This gave us even more reason to pilot something new for this age group – we realised it had potential to fill a gap.

Act Up was designed as a training ground and transitional space so young people are able to continue their relationship with Women & Theatre and continue to develop their creative talents.

Thank You

We would like to thank everyone that has helped make this a success; our young people, their families, carers and support staff, Birmingham Children’s Trust, Queen Alexandra College for promoting the project to their service users and students, Edgbaston Community Centre for being a friendly and accessible venue for weekly sessions and Birmingham REP and Birmingham Hippodrome for supporting 3 theatre trips with the young people and providing space for them to socialise beforehand.

We would like to give special thanks to our funders; National Lottery Awards for All, The John Thaw Foundation and The Sir Barry Jackson Trust.