The A.R.T. of Auditions

Feb 25 2018 | By Thom Dibdin More

Youth company’s open call for actors

Edinburgh youth company Annexe Arts is looking for performers aged from 16 to 25 years to join its Annexe Repertory Theatre (A.R.T).

The new repertory youth theatre explores a variety of themes in weekly two hour sessions on a Sunday. It is run by Tyler Mortimer and associate artists at Annexe Arts Hub.

Annexe Arts Hub venue, Merchant Street. Pic: Perry Jonsson

The company had its first outing at the Formation festival in early February, staging four plays over the six day event.

Annexe Arts says that it is committed to creating free opportunities for young people to work with some of Scotland’s best emerging theatrical talent in weekly and monthly sessions, developing their acting, writing, spoken word or technical skills.

Its aim is to create regular events to highlight and showcase the talents of the participants to Artistic Directors and agents from across Scotland.

As an artistic director with over 10 years experience, Tyler Mortimer started his career running St Ives Youth Theatre, a charity based in Cambridgeshire, which became one of the largest non-profit children’s youth theatre organisations in the UK.

focus on new writing

His work included several large-scale musical productions, five-star runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as working alongside organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre Connections Programme.

Annexe Arts says that Mortimer favours a “particular focus on new writing, and more specifically spoken-word, focusing on textual analysis and exploration of the human subtext”.

The company will perform in showcase events at the end of term, allowing them to be seen by industry professionals and audience members. The first showcase was last February at Assembly Roxy, under the name of Formation.