About Splendid Theatre
Splendid think theatre is important!
Splendid are a theatre company and an education company. They create challenging, entertaining, politically engaged theatre for young audiences, and provide expert training in all areas of drama practice and theory. They believe theatre is an empowering and enabling force that is available to everyone: all you need is a story, a body and a space to be heard.
Splendid are creative adaptors,.They take old stories and spin them into new thought prodding, theatrical, inclusive, political, anti-4th wall, heart-exposing versions. As storytellers, Splendid are interested in the universal human experience and specifically what will engage and provoke a young audience. They also want to give a voice to those characters that have been neglected, stereotyped or written out of the original version.
Stylistically Splendid make work that could only possibly exist in a theatre; the work is spirited, visual, interactive, theatrical, precise and honest. They use a chorus – usually objective to the events – to guide the audience through the story. Splendid aims to raise questions, highlight contradictions in the characters, the story, society, and aim to provoke debate within our audience long after we have gone.
Splendid are open to using any theatrical technique that will illustrate a point clearly. At the root of everything they do is a desire to connect with an audience.
Splendid are fiercely anti-4th wall theatre makers. They are clowns. Every single performance is a unique happening. That group of actors, with that audience together in that space at that time – it’s an experience that will not be repeated. The liveness is what they’re interested in: the feeling that anything could happen and probably will.
Splendid’s education work is at the centre of their practice. The instant, unfiltered response of a young audience is the greatest asset for creating theatre that engages everyone, while the energy and curiosity of young workshop participants constantly challenges them to be more intellectually rigorous, physically adventurous and theatrically inventive on stage.
Splendid’s colourful and accessible range of teaching resources are brilliant, and can be found in drama studios all over the world. Their workshops are also a riot and they have pages of teacher and student testimony wanting them back!
Why Drama Matters
Drama and Theatre for young people creates a space to understand and question the world, to test out another person’s life, to build empathy, to creatively solve problems, to take risks, to play, to unify, to collaborate and to stretch the potential of what they think they are capable of. Art makes young people powerful.
Why Splendid Are Patrons
Splendid think that National Drama’s work is vital. Promoting drama and reinforcing its importance within the curriculum, celebrating theatre for young people, theatre made by young people and providing support and a community for passionate drama practitioners everywhere. It’s a force for good.
Splendid are passionate about promoting and advocating for National Drama and continually celebrate drama as a subject within schools.