Youth clubs - theatre by and with the youth

18:30 Matchbox Shipbuilding. Slowly the room fills up with young people between 14 and 26. They come together from school, work, their everyday lives, to play theatre. In the Schauspielhaus Zurich this is called a youth club. For a year, the young people meet once a week and develop a play together with the club leaders. They move, improvise, write texts, develop scenes together with the club leaders, which finally lead to a performance. A space is created in which young people can let off steam, dance, express themselves and try things out. And in doing so, give visibility and expression to issues and concerns that preoccupy them in everyday life.

"We start with a game in a circle," calls Suna Gürler, club leader of Club 4, which I am allowed to watch in rehearsals today. There is nervousness, uncertainty and anticipation in the air. Many things are still unclear, lights are being tried out, the stage is being explored, video settings are being discovered. The almost 20 young people fill the room with an energy and joy that is directly contagious.

For Suna Gürler, director of the youth clubs and in-house director at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, the youth clubs are the basis of her work. On the one hand, the direct cooperation with young people promotes young talent, but also triggers important processes within the institution. For many young people, the municipal theatre is a place that in their mind is not meant for them. It seems to be a place for older people, with supposedly more cultural knowledge and more money. In addition, the offer for young people in Zurich is very thin. Although there are four youth clubs at the Schauspielhaus since 2019, there is also the LAB, which offers an open club, and the SpiellaborderZHdK. This is not sufficient coverage for the big city of Zurich, as in 2019 over 90 young people have registered for the youth clubs at the Schauspielhaus and this year the clubs are again exceptionally well attended.

Back in the Schiffbau, a disco ball in the middle, a swarm of young people all around. The circling of the ball determines the movement of the young people. They are one, together in harmony and yet completely individual in their movements and expression. Playing theatre offers them a break from everyday life, allows new friendships to develop and promotes their self-confidence. They are the future of theatre.