Get involved
At The Y Theatre we love reaching out and supporting our community. Whether you’re a local artist wanting to meet fellow creatives, to test out new material, or challenge yourself with something you’ve never done before, we have opportunities to suit you. Take a look at the great options we have right now.
New for 2024 – Creative Cafe
Looking for space to work on a project?
Our Creative Café is free and open to all local artists to use our theatre bar as a space to work on their projects. Whether it is for writing, rehearsing scenes or simply a place to meet like-minded artists.
Held on the last Thursday of every month, just pop along anytime between 11am and 1pm. Tea, coffee and other refreshments are available and any donations towards this are very welcome.
Rehearsal space
We know that times are challenging for new and independent artists and we want to do what we can to help. We are offering FREE rehearsal space to performers in our community. We have our beautiful listed theatre, sports hall and the Percy Barrett room available – space is limited so get in touch with us at [email protected] today!
Rough Draft
We love new stuff. We can’t get enough of it. From gut-wrenching theatre to side-splitting comedy, melodic music to punchy poetry, and all those arty bits in between, we love seeing all the new and exciting things that fall out of those creative brains. But more often than not, the first stumbling block when making something new is getting it seen, finding out if it works, and finding people to help you make it.
Enter Rough Draft.
Put together by a handful of Leicester creatives, Rough Draft is a platform for artists to do just that.
So how does it work?
Once a month we hold our scratch nights, each artists getting fifteen minutes to share their work, be that script in hand or something more polished. We then chat with the audience, ask questions, get answers (or we have paper forms too).
Rough Draft is free to attend and open to all. If you would like to be involved, come along to one of the nights and chat to our team, or pop us an email!
14/48 Leicester
We make 14 plays in 48 hours!
Sound impossible? Well it isn’t, and we have a tonne of fun while we’re at it. 14/48 is a creative playground for professional artists looking to make theatre, challenge themselves, and forge new connections across disciplines. The festival that originated in Seattle takes place three times a year across the midlands, bringing together 70 artists every time, and to keep the ideas fresh a minimum of 25% of the artists must be new.
So how does it work?
We get together on the Thursday night and draw a theme for that night’s plays. The writers draw their assignments at random, telling them how many actors to write for and where in the line-up their play will be. They then go away and write a ten minute play overnight, submitting by 8am.
On Friday at 9am the directors draw their play at random, at 10am they draw their cast at random. The band rehearse music and sound effects, the designers create set, costume and props, and the tech team work on lighting and projection. Each play gets twenty minutes to tech then we do performances at 8pm and 10.30pm.
At the end of the 8pm show we pick a second theme and we do the whole thing all over again!
Whos involved
- 7 writers
- 7 directors
- 25 actors
- A bunch of designers
- a gaggle of musicians
- a plethora of tech wizards
Written
Taken part
Pinggg...k!
Pinggg…K! is a lively spoken word event based in Leicester and run by gay poet, Bobba Cass. It welcomes ‘metrosexual verse’ and features poets, artists and performers as part of its monthly free programme. Performers have included Carol Leeming, Liz Gray, Joe Coghlan, Maria Taylor, Nicky Pywell, Dori Kirchmair, Stuart Snowden and Rob Gee.