Ready for its new West End season, the National Youth Theatre will reimagine the production of Dorian Gray in line with 'generation selfie' of the twenty-first century. The repertoire season at the Ambassadors theatre will also include Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful and Macbeth set in the First World War.
The radical re-telling of The Picture of Dorian Gray, entitled Selfie, will be performed by a company of fifteen 18-25 year olds at the theatre set to be bought by producer Cameron Mackintosh. Selfie will be directed by NYT artistic director Paul Roseby, seeing a female 'Dorian' having to choose between artifice and reality in the growing technological age, incredibly apt for today.
Following this, Simon Reade's adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful, set in the First World War, will tell the story of Private Tommo Peaceful, a soldier accused of cowardice awaiting a firing squad at dawn. It will be directed by Paul Hart, who directed last year's repertoire in Louise Brealey's Pope Joan. Macbeth has been adapted to pre-WW1 Austria-Hungary by Ed Hughes, who will also direct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAPcqzM12eQ
Last year's company have all since been signed up by agents, with a majority engaging in professional acting work since graduating from the company at the end of last year. The company was established to provide an exciting and affordable West End boot camp for talented young actors, at a time when the value of higher education is being questioned. To see the first company achieve success so soon after leaving is testament to their ability and also to the invaluable experience they received with the National Youth Theatre.
NYT's other work this year includes staging the Village Ceremonies at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, two new plays starring social inclusion participants at the Arcola Tent as well as continuing their creative cultural exchange programme in Saudi Arabia.