30 Oct 2023

Halloween Open Mic & Creative Night at Paignton Library

On Saturday 28th October, we held a Halloween themed Open Mic and Creative Night – A collaboration with the wonderful team at Paignton Library. Many thanks to Libraries Unlimited staff for all their support!

This event was produced by our first group of young producers – a group of four 16/17 year olds expanding their skillset through our National Citizen Service scheme. This scheme gives young people the chance to socialise with others their age, try new things, and increase their employability prospects.

Kobie, Miri, Ellie and Harvey worked with Pathways Producer Sam Parker to make the event happen. They designed social media promotion, organised the schedule for the evening, and presented the sharing of new work – all alongside acting in their won Doorstep Youth Theatre works in progress.

Young producer Miri said: “Producing for me was an exciting new challenge, and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to help out and have responsibility over certain ways the night went. I did find it challenging when coming up with good ideas with the pressure of quick thinking and making sure everyone was in agreement, but it was very rewarding when it all came together and I had a very nice evening and get it was rather successful”.

Kobie, another of our young producers, said “I found producing what happened in the evening very fun and it was an enjoyable time. Next time I would like to give myself more time to think of things.”

Alongside our brilliant young producers, the evening was made up of brilliant solo and group pieces from our Doorstep Youth Theatre and DAS groups.

Pieces range from short verbatim excerpts based on the hit BBC podcast ‘Uncanny’, to poetry, live music, and self-authored scenes, all developed through our regular weekly groups at Palace Theatre’s Stage Left space.

Whilst all of these acts were taking place, Paignton Library held a range of crafts-based stalls and a tuck shop for hungry audience members.

We will be running another young producers group as part of our NCS funded work very soon – if it looks like something you would like to be involved with, you can find out more here.

Doorstep Youth Theatre will now turn their attentions to deciding on what they want to create for their next production, ahead of their next scratch night with Beyond Face CIC and ACTA in February 2024.