Case Study

Geordie Corkers

Geordie Corkers

Ryedale Youth was formed in 1991, Auditions for the annual Easter production take place each November and the 70 acting members meet for rehearsals every Thursday evening, during half term and the Easter holidays at the performing arts centre in Malton, North Yorkshire. Group members are encouraged to learn about all aspects of theatrical production, with older members involved in the production as assistant directors, choreographers, stage managers and assisting with sound and lighting, props and scenery painting etc. Many of their ex-members have gone on to work successfully in professional theatre, TV and film. This year the Youth Theatre’s produced its 20th production, “Me and my girl”, performed at the Milton rooms, Malton.

Ryedale Youth Theatre (RYT) are Members of North Yorkshire Youth and are supported by Ian Waines, Field Development Worker for Ryedale / Scarborough for the last 2 years to access Keyfund Over the course of general emails, Ian had contacted RYT’s publicity officer Barbara Wood, informing her on this year’s Culture Shock Festival. Barbara expressed interest in the youth theatre performing at the event, and informed the young people of the opportunity and the event. Unfortunately due to exams and other schedules, the group weren’t able to perform at the festival, but members of the cast got together with the support of Ian to work on an application for a group outing to Culture Shock. They had accessed Keyfund before for their production of “Billy Elliot” the previous year, giving themselves a group name of “Geordie Corkers “. For that application they applied for resources such as police uniforms and miners regalia to use in their performance.
 

For their second stage of Keyfund they researched Culture Shock on the festivals website and found prices and travel arrangements. They found that transport was leaving Malton organised by 4Youth, and arranged with the area youth team leader to purchase tickets for the youth theatre to attend the event with them. The Keyfund group asked all RYT members who would be interested in attending the event to see how many of them would be able to attend as part of their application. In total 35 members of RYT wanted to attend the festival. Adding ticket and transport prices to attend the festival with 4Youth, they found they had money to allow a small budget to cover lunch.

Over the course of their rehearsals for “Me and my girl” it was obvious they worked well as a team, communicated and negotiated, so were working towards the 12 Key Skills to support their application.
 

They presented their Keyfund application to a panel 14,4,11 straight after their afternoon’s matinee performance in full costume, and after their presentation the group sang 1 of the songs from the show. After a short deliberation the panel agreed that the group had answered all their question regarding the group’s application and worked well as team regarding the Key skills.