Please visit the site here - Fusion Youth Theatre

You can also contact Fusion Youth Theatre through EMAIL

We have 6 professional artists working on the project this year!

Download a booking form - Download file

We recommend that participants are 8 years old or above, young people up to the age of 25 often take part and we ensure that participants are working within their own age group.

Our summer schools are very popular and places fill up quickly, so in order to secure your place, please fill in the attached form and return it to us as soon as possible.

Here are the dates and details of how the summer school will work, rehearsals and performances will take place at the Grimsby Central Hall unless otherwise stated:

Monday 11 August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Tuesday 12th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Wednesday 13th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Thursday 14th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Friday 15th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Monday 18th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Tuesday 19th August 10am-4pm (rehearsal)

Wednesday 20th August 10am-5pm (rehearsal) note: time extension

Thursday 21st August 10am-1pm (rehearsal) note: pre-performance run through

Thursday 21st August 2.30pm-3.30pm Performance (cast free to leave for dinner after)

Thursday 21st August 7.30pm-8.30pm Performance (please arrive back to the hall by 6pm)

Friday 22nd August 12.30-1.30pm (rehearsal) note: pre-performance run through

Friday 22nd August 2.30pm – 3.30pm Performance (cast stay after show to clean up)

Friday 22nd August 7.30pm – 11pm Cast Party/Meal (venue to be confirmed)

This production offers young people the opportunity to work with a number of different art forms, from dance and drama to art and puppetry Participants can choose to work in all areas or just one or two!

Fusion Youth Theatre take great pride in offering local young people the chance to do something different, creative and challenging, as well as having fun and making friends.

The production will be partly scripted and partly devised by the cast, we work as an ensemble to ensure that everyone has the chance to shine on stage!

Please contact us for further information on 01652 662052 or e mail contact@fusiontheatre.co.uk

Download the application form here - Download file

We are delighted to announce that Fusion Youth Theatre will be working towards a production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ for the festive season!
Each group will rehearse their own sections of the performance and come together in one large performance!

Drama for Ages 4-7 – Monday evenings, 5pm-6pm (starts Mon 8th Sept)
Our fantastic group for the earlier years will practice their roles as Bob Cratchits children, with a part for everyone including Tiny Tim and the Twins, we will all work together using games and fun exerices to create our own part of the story.

Dance for Ages 7+ - Monday evenings, 6pm-8pm (starts Mon 8th Sept)
Produce some amazing routines and dance sequences to tell the story of Scrooge, Cratchit and the 3 spirits that visit in the night! A chance to explore contemporary and classical dance theatre, how to tell a story through movement!

Singing for Ages 7+ - Wednesday evenings, 6pm-7pm (starts Wed 15th Oct)
This is a fantastic new addition to our weekly sessions, and will be here for the Christmas term only! Following the highly successful carol singing project from last year, participants will learn a variety of Christmas songs and carols to perform throughout the production. This group have the added bonus of carolling in the town centre, large stores and other popular locations. Soloists welcome!

Drama for Ages 7+ - Wednesday evenings, 7pm-9pm (starts Wed 15th Oct)
This team of young actors will work together on the story of A Christmas Carol, bringing Ebenezer Scrooge and his story to life on stage, exploring storytelling skills, physical theatre, comedy and drama!

For more information please e mail contact@fusiontheatre.co.uk or phone 01652 662052

Therefore plenty of the workshops and projects will have a chinese theme, from chinese lanterns and Origami to dragon dancing and taiko drumming!

The ever popular 'It' Factor and Cabaret shows will be returning alongside some great new projects such as DJ workshops and Bollywood Dancing.

To get involved please contact 01724 297271 and reserve your place on workshops now!

Or visit www.thebuzzwebsite.co.uk

The evening will feature performances from the groups recent trip to Ghana in Africa.

The performance is our first big project raising money for next years trip to Japan, where youth members will learn puppetry and dance in Tokyo for two weeks over Easter.

Tickets are £7 & £5 from the Caxton Ticket Office at the Grimsby Central Hall, Tel: 01472 346251

Download the Poster - Download file

Schools have chosen arts forms to work with, ranging from dance, drama, music visual arts and puppetry etc and have been partnered with professional artists to work with the teachers in the school.

Fusion will be using puppetry skills to work with year 1 and 2 children, the school will also bring in various different elements of drama, dance and music from other year groups and seperate projects to culminate in one big arts festival before Easter.

Fusion and Middlethorpes Project is called 'Going Places....with Puppets!' and will develop childrens knowledge of fairy tales and transport.

NEWS! - The project is going to cost a lot of money and we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded £5000 from the British Council as part of their Special Projects fund for youth exchanges abroad!

However, we still have a long way to go before we reach our target, sponsorship has been applied for and the youth members are organising several fundraising events to help secure enough money for them to travel and stay in Africa.

Fundraising Projects for 2008 will include:

CATWALK - a large dance/fashion production at the end of February.
Chinese Party - To celebrate the Chinese New Year in February
Sponsored Walk - location to be confirmed, our members will need sponsoring on their mini hike for a day
Cabaret Show - Young people will perform a variety of different scenes, monologues, dances and songs etc
Portraits - Get your photo drawn in fine art by our young and talented artist, China Jordan
Music CD - Professional musician, Jo Barker, is working with members of the group to produce their own songs

So far we have raised a lot of money for the event, but we need much more!

Above: Production of Stuart Little and Carol Singing at Proudfoot in Barton

Recent Events:

Halloween Party - This party and living room theatre event raised £179.85
Stuart Little - The junior groups production raised £150.00
Christmas Raffle - We had some fantastic prizes and raised £69.00
Photos - Scott Middletons photography raised £72.00
Donations - Thanks to all those who have donated, we have raised £120.30
Merchandise - Recent DVD and Calendar sales have raised £98 .00
Christmas Ball - This was a great party for all ages, we raised £390.00
Carol Singing - SO FAR we have raised £218.15....more to come!

Above: A portrait by China Jordan and the Christmas Ball

Vicky Bolton has raised over £60 through bake sales at the Grimsby Central Hall and Abbi Smith has raised over £40 selling cakes at school, Abbi's teacher is also doing a sponsored slim to help support her and her mum is organising a sponsored swim!
Chine Jordans portraits have proven very popular in time for the Christmas season and she has more work booked for the new year.
China and James Copestake rounded up a whole group of people for the Christmas Party which helped raise a lot of money and Lucy Wrightson is preparing for a sponsored swim in the new year.

If you want to donate to their cause or support any of these events, please keep watching this space!

Alternatively you can contact our office at the Ropewalk Arts Centre in Barton, on 01652 662052. You can also e mail our administrator - contact@fusiontheatre.co.uk

Two artists work alongside a nominated teacher from each participating school to support that teacher in the delivery of their own creative project with their class.

Previous years have seen specialist workshops to develop childrens confidence, artwork and writing produced by the children and teachers, assembly performances and large scale productions. Each teacher is different and they are supported in their individual journey.

This year we have introduced an advanced course for teachers who have already completed the consultancy. The Advanced group will focus on using language/text within performance as well as experimenting with creating an environment within their school!

The performance will also include a short drama piece about Christmas performed by the senior section of the youth theatre using physical theatre, dance and storytelling.

The performance will take place at the Grimsby Central Hall on:

Saturday 8th Dec @ 2.30pm
Sunday 9th Dec @ 2.30pm & 7.30pm

Tickets are £5/4 from the Caxton Theatre Box Office, Grimsby Central Library, tel 01472 346251

“Thank you for such an inspiring evening ! The painting was a fantastic idea for stimulus. The puppeteers’ imaginations seem limitless. They obviously did a huge amount of research. I was so impressed with the marionettes, ‘ Portrait’ by Emma Nicholson almost reduced me to tears. I was particularly impressed with Sophia Bouzidi’s performance of ‘Mother Ruin’ . I loved the idea of the skirt as the whorehouse, fantastic!” Angie Kerkham

“I have to tell you we were SO IMPRESSED WITH THE HIGH STANDARD AND QUALITY OF ALL THE PERFORMANCES! It was a beautiful, fantastic, mesmerising and moving showpiece! I loved the marionettes, they are Art pieces all by themselves! Also it ‘worked’ really well in terms of space and atmosphere within the Museum! So congratulations!” Catherine Rooney

The show also received an outstanding review after the Buxton Puppet Festival:

‘The March of the Guards to Finchley’ painted by William Hogarth in 1750 portrays the darker side of human life and the depravity of existence in London at the time. The ranks of army in their red uniforms disappear into the distance, but the foreground is thronging with crowds of drunkards, prostitutes, gamblers, and women and children caught up in the chaos. There is a sense of claustrophobia and the confusion of being trapped in such a world.

‘Satireyes’ a puppet performance by Caroline Astell-Burt, Emma Nicholson, and Emma Fisher, all assisted by puppetry student Adam Powell, brings ‘The March of the Guards to Finchley’ to life. It is as if a magnifying glass were held to the painting, picking out certain gestures, facial expressions, the small details you would certainly miss on first viewing. The puppeteers have each chosen to focus on a particular character within the painting. The marionettes they have created - a young prostitute, a little black boy from new Guinea, and a starving child whose father has gone to war, are beautifully crafted and their sad, poverty stricken lives are portrayed with such imagination and skill that they become real and memorable for us. I loved their grace, the soft contact of their feet on the floor and the fluidity as they moved across the stage.

The performers play beautifully with scale. There is Mother Needham with her raw bony face and exposed breast, a huge sinister character who appears after each scene, linking together the stories of the three main characters. She is the keeper of the Kings Head Brothel, and with a chorus of whores attached to her skirt, she eyes the audience with malevolence. There is a beautiful moment when she dangles a rosy apple at an innocent and graceful girl, a tiny puppet who swings in front of her only to be caught in the web of her brothel. The prostitute, a marionette dressed in contemporary clothing, staggers across the stage and sinks down to the floor in a drunken stupor. Inside her swollen belly is a tiny foetus clutching a gin bottle. There are the tiny tin soldiers, who fall at the sound of gunshot, showing us how easily dispensable is human life, and the little black boy, sold as a curiosity, who journeys home in his dreams over a sea of white silk.

The duet between puppeteer Emma Nicholson and her marionette child, a little boy who has lost his father to the war, is a most touching finish to the piece. As the starving boy is fed crumbs by his mother, we are moved both by the relationship between the puppeteer and her puppet, as well as the tenderness and despair of a mother who can no longer feed her child.

‘Satireyes’ works so well in that it vividly recreates a dark and oppressive period of time for the audience. We see both its perpetrators and its victims, and are intrigued, mesmerised and moved by the characters and their struggle. The insight and imagination of the puppeteers throws light so clearly on Hogarth’s society that suddenly we are left in no doubt as to the parallels with our own.

Tricia Durdey August 2007

Fusion Youth Theatre aim to deliver something very different every year for young people in North East Lincolnshire, exciting projects that will challenge young actors and teach a variety of new skills!

This years summer school will teach valuable actor training, developing new skills in:
devising, writing, performing, movement and music
as well as opportunities in art & design.
Working with a full team of professional artists, participants will devise a powerful ensemble theatre piece telling the story of Queen Hatshepsut.
With stunning costumes and powerful imagery, this is guaranteed to be another exciting and impressive project from this award winning team!
Open to ALL AGES – no Experience necessary!

About Queen Hatshepsut:
Queen Hatshepsut was the first great woman in recorded history: the forerunner of such figures as Cleopatra, Catherine the Great and Elizabeth I. Her story is one of elegance and mystery, war and murder!
Hatshepsut accomplished what no woman had before her. She ruled the most powerful, advanced civilization in the world, successfully, for twenty years. Even if there were some who resented her achievements, her success stands for all eternity.

The Dates:
REHEARSALS - Monday 20th to Friday 31st August, 10am-4pm (not Sat/Sun)
PERFORMANCE – Saturday 1st September, 2.30 & 7.30pm
Project will take place at the Grimsby Central Hall.
Tel: 07875 677273 or E Mail contact@fusiontheatre.co.uk