Hoxton Select

Hoxton Select is a pilot programme at Hoxton Hall in which a panel of young people are in charge of the building for a short season. Youth arts work is the core of what gets done at Hoxton Hall, but we also have professional theatre coming in on a hired basis. The two strands don’t often have a dialogue, so this is a way for us to try and marry them.

Because those two strands have always been quite separate, it was a logical progression for the building. It was a way of engaging lots of young people out there who don’t necessarily want to perform but who have a really keen interest in theatre.

You’d normally have one, two or three people making decisions in programming. Under this programme you have eight people, and everybody has to have their say. Not all had a vast experience of theatre, so before the decision process started, we had a period of time in which they took part in workshops: seeing lots of shows and discussing what they’d seen.

Some of our panel have had an ongoing relationship with Hoxton Hall. This is a step up for them, but others are completely new to us. We tried to get it out there to as many young people as possible through mailouts, open sessions, contacting lots of local youth theatres and schools.

The group’s programming process took a couple of months. We had to call out for submissions; we received about 50. Each had to be read through by every member of the panel – it was quite time consuming. We were just sitting in a room together sending them off to read proposals and to feed back.

We had some pieces with a complete script and that had been through rehearsed readings and some proposals where it was just a pitch. The main show that got through wasn’t an entirely unknown quantity – it was based on Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. It’s a comedy about what happens when a cleaner (in the original play, a butler) is left with the keys to his boss’s house after London's upper classes have fled the city, following a disaster. He takes in con-artists who proceed to con everyone around them.

The original idea for the season was that we’d have The Alchemist and a four-night slot featuring another piece. We received so many strong submissions that the young people wanted to see developed that we decided we’d have three nights and three completely different shows every night.

Hoxton Select is a bi-annual thing – there’s another season of work coming up in the spring. We’d like the panel to stay on but we might develop it so the people involved now will have a mentoring role next time. We may look to bring in some new faces and expand it slightly.

The panel are being mentored – they’ve had a relationship with all the companies coming into the building. They’ve had open access to rehearsals and actors, have undertaken research and shaped the plot of the play. Three members of the panel are aspiring actors; to have open access to a company for eight weeks and working with them to develop characters and the plot has been really exciting for them.

Find out more information about how you can get involved with the Spring 2011 season by emailing events@hoxtonhall.co.uk.

Kirsty was talking to Miriam Zendle