Royal Shakespeare Company selects five plays by Northampton youngsters

A group of theatre students have won a competition to have their plays included in the Royal Shakespeare Company's new 37 Playbook.

Submissions opened earlier this year and over 2,000 young people applied for the 37 spots.

Judges selected five budding bards who all come from the Silhouette Youth Theatre, which is based in a Northampton shopping centre.

Dylan 10, said to have his play picked "was just insane".

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is marking the 400th anniversary of the publication of William Shakespeare's folio, which brought together all his 37 plays in one volume.

The Silhouette Youth Theatre is based inside the Weston Favell shopping centre and was set up to give young people a voice.

Five years ago they started with 30 young people and now have 260 students learning a mixture of drama, musical theatre and dance.

Its chief executive Leigh Wolmarans said: "Five voices from this community, in this little shopping centre theatre, is just incredible… we're honoured and proud of our young people."

Over the weekend the five winners were able to see professional actors bring their words to life.

Maximillion 10, wrote a play called Fish about his two pets, Marvin and Bubbles, who sadly died but in the play they can walk on land and speak to humans before having to head back to sea.

"It made me feel great to see how all of the fish came to life and to see my play being acted," he said.

"I've written before, but it's the first time writing a script."

Isabella, 17, had some of the actors in tears with her moving play called Life Goes On.

"That was shocking, I can understand that maybe Leigh's a bit emotional, but when I saw that other people were I thought 'wow, it had an impact'," she said.

"I was quite sad one day and thought I should write something a little more sad. Normally I try to keep it to comedy. It all came down to wanting to write something quite different."

Other winners included nine-year-old Dylan who wrote about two gamers embarking on a journey that has very little to do with games, but is about a bird and a worm.

"When you hear your play read out by professional actors, it's just a bit mind-blowing," he said.

First-time playwright Grace, 10, wrote about a magical world of stargazing and challenging the rules.

"I was learning a guitar piece called Stargazer and one night I was lying in bed and I just thought I'll write that story, and decided to turn it into a play," she said.

Ten-year-old Edward's play got everyone thinking about the role social media plays in our society and his message to be more kind using it.

"It feels great, I'm really happy about this. I'm just happy to be here," he said.

Actor Scott Bradley was impressed by all of the plays and said: "They have all the things plays need. So character work, beautiful structure with that childlike imagination... which has taken the level from good plays to great plays.

"The children from this area winning this kind of national competition is just mind-blowing and makes you feel really proud."

Georgie White, head of national partnerships at the RSC, said she was delighted by the competition response.

"What was brilliant about the submission was over 45% were people who considered themselves first time writers… and of the final 37 [selected], 10 were by writers who were under 18, and five of those were young people from Northamptonshire," she said.

"I think its testament to Silhouette and how much they've supported, encouraged, inspired their young people to think 'I can do this, I can write a play, I can be a playwright'.

"We decided we wanted to bring together a new folio of 37 Plays as Shakespeare did 400 years ago, that tell the stories of our time, of who we are."

The 37 new plays will be performed across the country in the autumn.

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