Developing

In a couple of weeks our board of trustees will, all being well, sign off our first ever company development plan.  The plan, now in its penultimate draft, has been something I've been working on since June.  After four years of very rapid growth we're now in a position to consolidate, to improve consistency across our very many projects and, alongside that, grow a whole new way of working that puts our young people right at the centre of the creative process, from start to finish.

We'll publish the development plan online once it's formally passed, but in the meantime here's a word cloud showing the words we've used most in the plan. 

Our new flagship company

One of our key aims this year is to finally place our oldest company of young people - Work in Progress - at the forefront of our work.  Historically, it's always been the 12-16s who've got most attention, mainly because that's where this company started - with everything else bolted on to it.

If we put the past aside it's clear that the 16-19 year olds, an 18-strong collective of young people who've trained with us over years, should be our 'flagship' group.   And this year we're determined to make that happen.

The main way is through the production of a seriously ambitious piece of work - a new play called The Centre that we're developing with Alexandra Wood.  That'll take place in 2013.  Before that, however, we're linking the young people up with some brillaint people through a series of workshops.

They include collaborations with our associate company, Company of Angels, a new playwrighting project with Fin Kennedy and MA Playwrights from Goldsmiths University, a new 24 hour play with three really exciting external companies and theatre visits to venues across London.

At the same time, we've pared down the group so it's made up of some of the most committed, kind, generous and imaginative young people in London.  They're all people who wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for us and I think they're all people who can have a massive impact on our work and - in the future - on the world of theatre as a whole.