Thirty-five young actors from award-winning youth theatre programme Young Everyman Playhouse (YEP) will make their debut on the Playhouse main stage from 27th February to 2nd March, with a new devised piece – Crowd.

Following on from previous productions of The City and the Value of Things (2018) The Establishment (2017) and The Environmentalists (2016), Crowd will tackle issues of everyday society and specifically the mentality of “the crowd”, in a piece devised entirely by the young theatre-makers.

YEP use their own personal experiences and feelings to transport very real issues of today into a fictitious autocracy, powerfully examining the rise of populist and autocratic leaders across the globe.

With themes of control, state sponsored violence and surveillance, Crowd charts the rise of a strong leader. In an advancing technological world, how much of ourselves are we willing to surrender? If you have nothing to hide, why wouldn’t you let Alexa listen to your every word?

Chris Tomlinson, associate director of Young Everyman Playhouse, said, “These large-scale productions pull all the actors together in YEP. We provide some guidance, but it is fundamentally their words and their ideas that end up on the stage.

It’s massively important for us to give young people the responsibility of putting on a huge show, like Crowd, in a space like the Playhouse. They thrive off the responsibility of owning a piece of theatre, and to stand by the work that they actually make.”

Crowd is devised by members of YEP with the support of YEP coordinators. The production is also supported by other YEP strands including directors, technicians, marketers, writers and producers.

Tickets for Crowd are on sale now and available at www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on. People purchasing tickets for Crowd are directly supporting the Everyman & Playhouse’s work with young people through Young Everyman Playhouse.