Education and Outreach

Since founding in 2005, Music Theatre 4 Youth has been providing opportunities to students, schools and the community. Our programmes are designed to reach out to the whole community by visiting various regional theatre venues across Ireland undertaking open access projects.

To ensure that our projects remain open access, we aim to keep the course fee as low as possible and seek funding to be able to provide free bursary places to those children who require financial assistance.

Our open access projects are non-auditioned; anyone with a genuine interest in musical theatre is welcome to attend. This ensures that those young people who might not otherwise have the chance to join the company through an audition are given the opportunity to take part. We recognise that young people develop at different stages, many need to build their confidence and self-esteem, and to be encouraged to reach their potential.

“I was pretty nervous at the beginning but by the end it felt natural. The tutors were excellent and really made me think about my performance and how to improve it.” Kevin, Belfast

In 2006 the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) sponsored our Intensive Training days in Belfast. Their sponsorship enabled us to offer music theatre skills training to students from 3 schools in the Belfast area while teachers were invited to observe the workshops. The participating schools in 2006 were:

St. Patrick’s College
Wallace High School
St. Louise’s

“The course gave opportunity to teachers and pupils to learn skills and techniques not normally available in Northern Ireland. A big thank you must go to NASUWT who saw the need for expert training for teachers and students and decided to sponsor such an excellent venture.” Ciara McHenry, Head of Drama St. Patrick’s College