Tracy Harris and Paul Jenkins

Lead artists: Tracy Harris and Paul Jenkins
Venue partner: The Welfare, Ystradgynlais
Project Partners: Ysgol Maeserdderwyn, West Glamorgan Youth Theatre

Paul is a writer and theatre-maker who has won awards for his work as both a playwright and actor. He has written plays for the Birmingham Rep, Southwark Playhouse and Belarus Free Theatre. His last play Fear of Drowning was a runner-up in the inaugural Wales Drama Award. His recent Creative Wales Award has seen him exploring interactive theatre forms. Paul is a member of the JMK directors group at Sherman Cymru.

Tracy Harris is a writer, performance artist and filmmaker. Her plays include Past Away (Sgript
Cymru) The Cloak Room (Sherman Cymru/ Mighty Theatre, Washington) and No Vacancies (Sherman Cymru) which has been commissioned by spinning head films as a feature film. Along with Chris Rushton, she directed and produced the 9 part BBC Bafta nominated documentaries Swansea Living on the Streets and most recently Selling Sex to Survive about prostitution in South Wales. Her first one- woman show Lost, Found, Stolen was developed through National Theatre Wales’ WalesLab programme and Arts Council of Wales and was performed at Sprint Festival at Camden’s People’s Theatre and Volcano Theatre. She is the recipient of the 2015 Creative Wales award, where she is researching and developing her practice in Documentary theatre.

The Welfare in Ystradgynlais is an arts and community centre serving a disparate community in the upper Swansea valley affected by rural poverty and transport poverty issues. An ex-Miners lnstitute. its purpose and driving mission is embedded in its combined ex-mining community and the rural welsh speaking area of north Brecknockshire.

Twenty16

Tracy and Paul worked with 15-16 year olds from Maesydderwen High School to develop a piece of documentary theatre, that gave young people a voice to speak out about what it meant to be a teenager in 2016. They worked with local teenagers to develop and make an early version of the show, Twenty16, based on their personal experiences, perspectives of the world and stories from their real lives.

Their Platfform residency saw them work towards a scratch performance with young people performing the script with a view to further development beyond the life of the residency. Workshops took place over a period of months that taught writing and performance techniques. These were held at Maesydderwen High School and aimed to empower young people to find, give voice to and perform the opinions and stories of their generation. Venue residencies at The Welfare, Ystradgynlais took place between April –June that developed performance skills in the young people and introduced them to other professional theatre-makers.

Year 2: Twenty16

Tracy and Paul continued working with Platfform to create phase two and three of this project as it continued into the second year of the programme, culminating in performances of Twenty16 at Chapter Arts Centre and The Welfare in April 2017 as a co-production between Theatr Iolo and The Welfare. The later stages of the creative process were mentored by Director James Blakey, and choreographer Aleksandra Jones continued to work on movement and choreography with the group of young people. The young cast continued to develop their own monologues and ideas around the theme of being 16 in the year 2016 and everything that entailed on a personal level, set against the backdrop of a politically, culturally and socially tumultuous year.

In May 2017, Olivia Harris (Associate Producer, Theatr Iolo) and Paul Jenkins presented the piece in Cape Town at ASSITEJ World Congress, an international conference and showcase for the international young people’s theatre sector.

As a result of this production and the continued interest from the teenagers involved, The Welfare were able to secure funding from Powys County Council to support a youth drama group, who explored a piece of work about masculinity, supported by Theatr Iolo.