Northampton’s Royal and Derngate will welcome hundreds of young people to perform as part of the National Theatre Connections Festival 2025, with 16 schools and youth groups taking part.
The National Theatre Connections Festival is a celebration of young people, theatre and the importance of access to the arts. Each year the National Theatre commissions a collection of new plays for young people to perform.
Royal and Derngate hosts “the largest and most diverse regional festival across the country”. Groups will perform a range of new plays including Brain Play by Chloë Lawrence-Taylor and Paul Sirett, YOU 2.0 by Alys Metcalf, Fresh Air by Vickie Donoghue, No Regrets by Gary McNair and The Company of Trees by Jane Bodie.
As part of the festival, the theatre’s own young company will reprise its production of Saba’s Swim by Danusia Samal on Saturday 5 April at 6:15PM and Sunday 6 April at 3PM.
Organisations taking part include Kettering Science Academy, Wollaston School Theatre Company, Kingsthorpe College, St Peter’s Pathway and Corby’s Pegasus Performing Arts while other groups will come from Reading, Peterborough, Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire and Birmingham.
The festival will run from Monday 31 March until Sunday 6 April. A full schedule of performances is available at the Royal and Derngate web site.