***In light of COVID restrictions, recruitment of new members has been postponed until late 2020, keep an eye on our instagram and the website for updates.***

You do not need to have any drama experience to become a member of DYT.

DYT only recruits new members once a year. Each year an Open Day is held for prospective members to meet our current members and leaders and find about about the organisation.

At the Open Day you can expect to spend about an hour getting information and will be asked to fill in an application form.  You will be invited to attend a workshop audition.  There are normally 15 – 20 young people in each audition where you will play some basic drama games and exercises and be asked why you’d like to join. The auditions will in the evenings in the weeks following.

Competition for a place at DYT is quite high with roughly 100-120 young people auditioning for one of 35 places. We try to have a balance of boys and girls from across the age range 14-22 from Dublin City and County. No experience is necessary! It’s more important that you have an open mind and are a good team player. You must be 14 by the end of September to be eligible to join.

If you are lucky enough to be accepted you are expected to commit to attending the all of the first 10 weeks of workshops, held each Saturday from 11am to 1pm (usually from October to December).

DYT is grant aided by The Arts Council, City of Dublin Youth Service Board and Dublin City Council, this enables us to keep membership fees to a sum of €100 per annum. Members are expected to actively participate in members’ fundraising initiatives.

To join DYT please attend the open day and fill in an application form. You can contact the office on 01 8743687 or email us at admin@dublinyouththeatre.com with any questions.

Workshops

Workshops are fundamental to Dublin Youth Theatre’s work. The programme caters for all our members, regardless of experience. Every Saturday at 11am-1pm from October to May, a member can expect to partake in a general workshop and then sit down to a cup of tea and a chat with the other members.

To date, our workshops have included clowning, dance, devising, forum theatre, improvisation, puppetry, voice, stagecraft, stage combat, playwriting, technical theatre and much, much more. These workshops are not classes in acting or theatre. The principles of youth work in the context of community arts underpin the planning and operation of all DYT activities.

First year members must be available attend workshops in the first 10 weeks of their first term.

Productions

Dublin Youth Theatre has built a reputation over the last forty years for producing high-quality, exciting, challenging theatre. The annual programme includes the production of between 6 to 12 plays. These are a combination of high profile shows in recognised professional venues and low-key productions which allow new members with little or no experience an opportunity to perform in a ‘safe’ environment.

DYT Big Shows have featured in the Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Theatre Festivals.  In 2016 DYT presented RISING on the Peacock stage of the Abbey Theatre inspired by the role young people played in the lead-up to 1916. RISING was a wide-ranging contemporary look at what revolution means to young people in Ireland now. Developed with a cast of 20 DYT members in collaboration with documentary playwright Helena Enright and director Tom Creed, RISING explored art as activism, music as mobilizer and theatre as propaganda machine.

For DYT’s 40th anniversary Big Show in 2017 two generations of DYT alumni created this is a room… with Dylan Coburn Gray writing and Veronica Coburn directing a new piece of contemporary theatre that explored the ways in which young people choose spaces and people to make a family and home of their own.  The development of the piece involved DYT partnering with Focus Ireland to work with a group of young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, as well as workshops with DYT members.  The cast included 21 members of DYT and it was staged as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in Project Arts Centre.

Director Liam Halligan created a contemporary, Brexit-influenced setting for Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in Smock Alley Boys’ School in 2018 along with live musical accompaniment from a band formed of DYT members.

National and International Opportunities

Dublin Youth Theatre welcomes opportunities for exchanges with other youth groups at local, national and international levels. We have participated in festivals and exchanges in Britain, Austria, the US, Belgium, Sicily, Denmark, Shetland Islands, Slovenia & Germany, as well as with other youth theatres all over Ireland.

As members of Youth Theatre Ireland, DYT are available to apply for Youth Theatre Ireland events such as the National Youth Theatre production that takes place every two years and the National Festival of Youth Theatres. In 2016, DYT participated in an exchange with The Lyric Drama Studio in Belfast where a group of members spent the day visiting Belfast, going on a tour of the city, learning about their history, and finally seeing their production of The Patriot Game, later on in the year, some of their members visited Dublin and saw our production of Rising.

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