The directors of the youth groups taking part in the International Meeting of Youth Theatre sapperlot had their own cosy get-together. They met in a large group in the Spiegelsaal of the Astra and talked about their journey to the theatre. The discussion was lead by Thomas, who already at the beginning revealed all the secret relationships in the TPZ and the mystery about why all of us have the same surname 😉. Well done, Thomas!

Most of the directors have a theatre background that goes back to their childhood. Quite a few of them were born into the theatre, like Kelli Mcloud-Schingen from the USA who also represents the board of the International Amateur Theatre Association at the sapperlot festival.

Why do we do theatre?

This was also a topic at the conference. The feedback ranged from "I don't know how that happened" (Jannika) to "I want to make the world a better place" (also Jannika 😉). But it was also clear that all of us want to give the children and young people a stage - in more senses - to help them express their stories and thoughts and improve their social skills.

How do we choose the topics?

It became touching right after the first speeches, namely when the Ukrainian group explained how their play came about. How they used online meetings to try and help the children come to terms with what they had experienced. The war. "It was more therapy than anything else," said Olga, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian group, and "What you will see are not made-up stories. They are the stories of the young people. True stories."

The words of the Thai leader Popchan were also very touching: "I am not a director. I am more of a carrier." The group lives together as a commune, spends day and night together and uses this time to write, among other things. "The young people write every day. The play we're showing here was written in just one day."

Of course, the English cannot do without Shakespeare - at least Matt has. He loves Shakespeare, he is passionate about him. The contrary for Tilly. All that text, the old stories - she would rather smash them. But … this combination can only be good, they think. We are sure about that.

Thanks also for Jonathan's “stand-up interlude”, in which he tried to explain how it is with the chaos in his head, which clears up in rehearsal with the young people to such an extent that he can work on the story again. “I do impro”, he said. “If I come to the rehearsal and the youngsters propose something, I say yes.” And then the chaos comes back. If he can cut a hundred-page manuscript down to fourteen pages, it must be good. No? It's just big luck for the TPZ that he was practically forced to devote himself to the theatre professionally ;-)

Thank you for this first evening with you fantastic theatre directors! We're already looking forward to seeing your plays and have some more discussion like this one.