The Stage

Lyric Hammersmith appoints young people to associate roles

Published Thursday 24 February 2011 at 11:03 by Natalie Woolman

London’s Lyric Hammersmith has appointed four young people to artistic associate positions within the venue, in a bid to improve diversity in the sector.

Funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Young Artistic Associates programme is designed to support people with backgrounds currently under-represented in the sector with full-time, paid positions. These include young people from ethnic minority groups and women with backstage and technical careers.

The YAA programme will run over the next two years, with three posts available in each year. This year’s entry has been appointed - Jenny McNally will support the Lyric’s head of production, Elliott Daley will work on the Lyric’s activities for young people and Nathan Bryon and Deanna Rodger will share the performance post so they can continue to act professionally.

Olivier Award-winning lighting designer Paule Constable, Soho Theatre artistic director Steve Marmion and playwright Simon Stephens are among the mentors for the YAAs.

Speaking to The Stage, Jessica Hepburn, executive director of the Lyric, said: “The Lyric does amazing work with young people. We have thousands of young people a year, they are genuinely diverse, they represent the Hammersmith and Fulham and west London community.

“Yet there is still this real disconnect within the theatre industry between those young people who attend theatre youth groups and those who go on to work full-time in the industry. It still hasn’t really changed.”

Hepburn said doing unpaid work was now common in order to get a job in the theatre industry but that this was not possible for many youngsters. The YAA programme is intended to offer paid posts to those who would not be able to work for free.

Hepburn said she wanted the scheme to help to “change the face of our industry”.