National Youth Theatre

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The London-based National Youth Theatre or NYT is the United Kingdom's leading organisation for young people in the field of theatre. It runs acting auditions, workshops, drama courses and actual theatre productions. The organisation is based in North London.

The National Youth Theatre was founded in 1956 by Michael Croft and was the UK's first Youth Theatre going on to grow into one of Europes premier youth arts organisations. The NYT gives young people (13 to 21) the opportunity for creative participation through theatre arts. All young people from across the UK, regardless of background, situation or status, are welcome to apply and the theatre receives roughly 4,500 applicants a year.

The NYT is a hotbed of young creative talent, and many in the entertainment industry started with the company, including Sir Ben Kingsley, Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Helen Mirren, Kate Adie, Daniel Craig, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Matthew Marsden, Julian Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alec Newman, Jessica Stevenson, Michael Kitchen, Gina McKee, Diana Quick, Timothy Spall, David Suchet, Douglas Hodge, Liza Tarbuck, Jamie Theakston, Alex Kingston, Simon Ward, Clive Mantle, Paula Wilcox, Michael York, Orlando Bloom, Rosamund Pike, Beth Winslet, Charlotte Reather,Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Matt Lucas, Catherine Tate, Max Minghella, Shaun Evans,Ed Westwick and David Walliams.

Equally The NYT has produced some of the finest stage managers, lighting designers, technicians and sound engineers. As well as running acting workshops and courses each summer it runs courses in stage management, lighting & sound, set construction and design and costume. Once members have completed their course they are eligible to take part and contribute to NYT productions from lighting designing to assistant stage managing.

2006 was the National Youth Theatre's 50th anniversary year. To celebrate a number of events were held at the Royal Court, Brierley Hill, The Soho Theatre, The Hackney Empire, The Lowry (Manchester) & in Trafalgar Square. Also on the 26th of May the NYT started a successful world record attempt (for the longest continuous reading) where they read every single play they had performed since 1956. It successfully finished on Sunday 4th June. Many of the original cast members from the first production, Henry V, were reunited to read Henry to start the record off.

On the 10th September 2006 the National Youth Theatre celebrated its 50th anniversary in Trafalgar Square, London. This was one of the youth theatre's most ambitious events: 2000 of its current members were involved in the show entitled 'God Save The Teen'.Kamal Hussain opened the show quoting it was " The koolest thing he has done with the National Youth Theatre." Picture here; [[1]]

In 2007, NYT, launched their 'Generation ID Season', which aims to deal with the important issue of youth identity and looks to open up discussion on what it means to be young in this age, through a variety of theatrical, multi-media, film and site-specific performances.