Working with the National Youth Theatre

From 28th August to 2nd September, at 8.30pm in the Studio, writers from Soho Theatre and the National Youth Theatre will create and perform a 100 word play that captures the essence and speed of youth.

A note from Rachel and Natasha

We’re delighted to be working with the National Youth Theatre, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary, on the first stage of an ambitious project that aims to tap into the creativity of young people and create global connections.

One Hundred Words is inspired by the changes evident in Beijing as it prepares for the Olympics. Sitting in the back of a taxi on a trip to the Chinese capital in 2000, we heard about the recent government directive that people in the service industries should ‘learn 100 sentences of a foreign language for daily use’. We immediately began thinking…if you had to choose a hundred words, which would you choose and why? Could we create a project that challenged young people’s imagination, generated thousands of short plays and encouraged the sharing of words and worlds through live performance and digital technologies?

The result is One Hundred Words – a project that as it grows will link young people living in the Olympic cities of London and Beijing and eventually, hundreds of cities throughout the world.

Having developed and tested the idea over the past year, this week is the first time that One Hundred Words will involve audiences as well as over a hundred young people as writers, performers and technicians. Over the course of six days, 36 writers from Soho Theatre’s Young Writers’ and Soho Connect programmes and the National Youth Theatre will be given 300 minutes to write a short play that captures the essence and speed of youth using just 100 words. Plays will be rehearsed by National Youth Theatre actors in the afternoon and performed that evening. Each night, audiences will be able to see up to six plays created from scratch that day.

We’re looking forward to an explosion of energy and creativity that will pave the way for future stages of One Hundred Words.

Performed by National Youth Theatre actors
Directed by Natasha Betteridge and Oliver Williams
Co-produced by Rachel Parslew