Mischief Theatre comes to UYA

For our main project this year we were absolutely delighted to be joined by world-famous Mischief Theatre – the theatre company behind globally acclaimed productions including ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’, ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’, and ‘Magic Goes Wrong’ created with Penn and Teller.

We welcomed the incomparable Fred Gray – Mischief actor and Associate Director with West End and Broadway credits – who joined us over a series of weekends in October for The Mischief Labs: a course on acting and comedy.

What followed was an explosion of joy, hilarity and acting genius. Our actors were challenged to step beyond their comfort zone and we had so much fun exploring clowning, improvisation, storytelling and comedy. The work was advanced, taken directly from the rehearsal rooms of Mischief’s famous productions, and we were mightily impressed with how our actors rose to the challenge. At it’s heart, the course was about empowering actors to embrace the beauty of mistakes and to find the confidence to be bold.

In the latter part of the course, the actors began devising retellings of well-known fairy tales in the Goes Wrong style. A week later they performed to audiences of family, friends and industry professionals in a joyous evening of organised chaos. Several actors were put to the ultimate test, performing some of the improvisation exercises from The Mischief Labs, live and unrehearsed in front of our audiences.

The actors were exceptional and there were many moments of magic that will stick with us. Fred commented, “I have run workshops for many years, in countless places, but I’d be hard pushed to find a place that has cultivated such fertile ground for young people to express themselves. Kieran and Katie clearly have worked incredibly hard to help build trust, friendship, creativity, acceptance and FUN. The workshop I ran was advanced for their age group and I was astounded at how the kids approached the work and it wouldn’t have been possible without the foundation of trust that Urban Young Actors has built.”