Y Touring Theatre Company

Y Touring Theatre Company

Y Touring Theatre Company is Central YMCA’s ITC/Equity registered, award-winning professional theatre company, founded in 1989 by Nigel Townsend.

Mission statement

Y Touring’s mission is to create high quality theatre, drama, and digital media to engage our audiences, young people and adults, in an informed debate about often complex and challenging issues.

Y Touring Theatre Company background

Y Touring has produced 54 regional, national and international tours of plays by professional playwrights including Judith Johnson, Judy Upton, Jonathan Hall, Nicola Baldwin and Rhiannon Tise reaching over 2 million young people in schools, youth clubs, community venues, studio theatres, prisons and young offenders centres.

In 1989 Y Touring produced 'The Inner Circle' by Patricia Loughrey, originally commissioned by The New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, adapting it for British young people’s audiences. This play told the story of a group of four friends, one of whom had been infected by HIV and went on to develop AIDS and die.

Theatre of Debate®

In 1995 Y Touring introduced the Theatre of Debate® concept. Each Theatre of Debate® project consists of a play created to engage the target audience in an informed debate about the a specific subject. The play is followed by a live debate between the actors in character and the audience supported by the use of electronic voting. The play and debate are supported by extensive online resources. The development of each Theatre of Debate® project begins with a workshop bringing playwrights, experts and members of the target audience together to creatively explore the chosen subject. This exploration is the start of the company’s journey to producing a new Theatre of Debate® product.

Between 1995 and 2008 Y Touring Theatre Company commissioned, developed and produced UK tours of eight Theatre of Debate® projects and one Theatre of Debate® podcast about contemporary science in partnership with the Wellcome Trust and other bodies. [Theatre of Debate ® is a registered Trade Mark of Central YMCA. Trade mark number: 2473050 www.ipo.gov.uk]

Y Touring Theatre of Debate® Productions

2008
'The Projectionist' by Laura FitzGerald is a podcast exploring social, moral, scientific and political questions posed by the rise of a privacy and surveillance society. This production has been developed in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering.
The following were members of the Advisory Panel:
Nigel Gilbert, Professor Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford
Martyn Thomas Martyn Thomas FREng, Director and Principal Consultant, Martyn Thomas Associates
Colin Langham Fitt, formerly Deputy Chief Constable, Suffolk Constabulary
Charlie Edwards, Senior Researcher Demos (UK think tank)
Dr Ian Forbes, Social Science Consultant & Director
Gus Hosein, Visiting Fellow in the Information Systems Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

2007
'Nobody Lives Forever' by Judith Johnson, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by stem cell research. This production has been developed in partnership with the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) and is supported by the Medical Research Council (UK) (MRC), the Department of Health, Action Medical Research and the Royal Albert Hall.
The following were members of the Advisory Group:
Dr Sophie Petit-Zeman, Head of External Relations, Association of Medical Research Charities
Dr Calum MacKellar, Director of Research, Scottish Council on Human Bioethics
Dr Robin Lovell-Badge, Head of Developmental Genetics, MRC National Institute for Medical Research
Josephine Quintavalle, CORE - Comment on Reproductive Ethics
Dr Donald Bruce, formerly Director of Society, Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland
Dr Stephen Minger, Lecturer in Biomolecular Sciences at King's College London

2006
'Every Breath' by Judith Johnson, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by the use of animals in medical research. This project was developed in partnership with the Association of Medical Research charities.
The following were members of the Advisory Group:
Dr. Jarrod Bailey, Science Director, Europeans for Medical Progress
Alistair Currie formerly Campaigns Director, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
Vicky Cowell Director, Seriously Ill for Medical Research
Dr. Penny Hawkins Deputy Head, Research Animals Department, RSPCA
Betty McBride Marketing and Communications Director, British Heart Foundation
Professor John Martin, Director Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine, UCL
Dr. Sophie Petit-Zeman, Director of Public Dialogue, Association of Medical Research Charities
Dr. Janet Radcliffe Richards Lecturer in the Philosophy of Medicine, UCL
Harald Schmidt, Assistant Director, Nuffield Council on Bioethics

2004
'Mind the Gap' by Abi Bown, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by advances in neuroscience. This project was developed in partnership with The European DANA Alliance for the Brain.
The following were members of the advisory group:
James Butcher, Editor, Lancet Neurology
Prof Russell Foster, Head of the Department of Integrative and Molecular Neuroscience, Imperial College
Prof Sir Michael Rutter, formerly Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London
Prof Steven Rose, Director of Brain and Behaviour Research Group, Open University
Prof Richard Ashcroft, Medical Ethics Unit, Imperial College

2000
'Learning to Love the Grey' by Jonathan Hall, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by advances in Cloning and stem cell therapy. Developed in partnership with, and supported by, the Wellcome Trust.

1999
'Sweet As You Are' by Jonathan Hall, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by the Genetic Modification of crops. Developed in partnership with, and supported by, the John Innes Centre and the Teachers Scientist network.

1997
'Pig in the Middle' by Judy Upton, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by advances in Xenotransplantation (animal to human transplants). Developed in partnership with the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
The following were members of the advisory group:
Dr John Dunning Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Paula Keenan & Vanessa Morgan, Transplant Coordinators
Prof Mark Wolpert, then Prof of Medicine, Member of Nuffield Council’s Working Party on ethics of animal to human transplants Susan Frade, Transplant Recipient
Andrew Tyler, Director Animal Aid

1996
'Cracked' by Nicola Baldwin, explores the biological basis of mental illness and depression in particular. Developed in partnership with The Mental Health Foundation, supported by the Wellcome Trust.
The following contributed to the development of 'Cracked':
Dr Sophie Petit Zeman
Professor Roy Porter
Dr Michael O’Donovan, Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, University of Wales College of Medicine
Professor Chris Fairburn, University of Oxford
Professor Lewis Wolpert

1995
'The Gift' by Nicola Baldwin, explores the social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by advances in Genetic selection.
Developed with Prof Bernadette Modell supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Digital Media

'The Gift' was adapted into a TV drama by Y Touring and Zenith Productions, funded by the Wellcome Trust and shown on the BBC Learning Zone. In 2006 'The Gift' was converted onto DVD and the resources brought up to date. 'Sweet As You Are' has been filmed by the BBC as a theatre performance. In 2000 'Pig in the Middle' was translated into Dutch and toured throughout Holland, funded by the Rathenau Institute. 'Every Breath' has been produced as a radio play and is available to download as a podcast. A DVD version of the play will shortly be available for schools.

The company produced, in partnership with Maverick Productions, a three-part adaptation of 'Learning to Love the Grey' and a three-part drama 'Making Astronauts', a drama which complements the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ report on the ethics of research into the relationship between genes and behaviour. Both of these dramas were commissioned by the Open University’s Open Science programme.

Y Touring has digitalised five plays with Maverick Productions for the SIN website (Science Invention and Nature), a partnership between the Science Museum, The Natural History Museum, Wild Screen Trust and Y Touring. The resultant site, geneticfutures.com is approved by the National Grid for Learning.

External links

* [http://www.ytouring.org.uk/ Y Touring]
* [http://www.geneticfutures.com/ Genetic futures]
* [http://www.sinergies.org.uk/site.asp?T=3&AID=%7BCC090985-BA39-4AD5-B795-9C6DB8324C51%7D&MID=%7B4B25DCA3-51F4-467F-A811-F8852FF7B5A8%7D/ Science invention and Nature]
* [http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ IPO]

Notes and references

Theatre of Debate ® is a registered Trade Mark of Central YMCA. Trade mark number: 2473050