Devon Youth Theatre’s Borderline at Exeter Northcott.
By Charlie McFadzean.
Devon Youth Theatre is a group funded by Devon County Council for young people from 13-18 interested in performance and stage crafts. DYT offers them the experience of a full theatre production, from auditioning to rehearsal to the final performance in front of a paying audience.
From 100 initial participants, 27 went on to create the final performance, which was devised by the whole company and was not scripted. Devised theatre does not use writers to create a script but instead uses the group of performers to improvise performance in order to create the finished piece. Rehearsals began back in March, and the team rehearsed every Saturday at The Drama Department The University of Exeter and a week at the Exeter Northcott. On the tech run everyone was there until 10pm! The performers split into groups and had workshops in Music, Dialogue and Movement. The tech team would work with one of the groups towards the end of the rehearsals and sorted out lighting for that group. They also made video and worked with sound and projection. On the day of the performance the projector blew up and the tech team sprang into action to fix it for the final show.
The performance was called Borderline, and based on two young boys playing with their toys. The boys were friends but fell out in the story because couldn’t play well together, on of the boys parents were getting divorced and he was frustrated but couldn’t talk about it. He meets a puppet who isn’t wanted by other members of the toy box and they form a bond as they both feel rejected. The play asks the question of all the characters-do you want to exist or live? Which encouraged everyone to push themselves to live life to the full. The piece finishes with all the characters crossing their borderline to better future. It finished on an original song composed by the cast.
