A Kid Like Me presented by True North Youth Theatre Ensemble in association with Come Out Festival for Children, City of Port Adelaide Enfield, The Parks Theatre and Adelaide Festival Centre
A Kid Like Me is a series of mini-plays focused on themes that worry, trouble and are relevant to young people. Through the plays, the True North Youth Theatre Ensemble explores what it means to be a kid and asks the audience: Are you a kid like me? The issues were selected by the members of the Senior Ensemble and included Social Anxiety, Over sexualisation of young girls, Bullying, Consumerism, Peer pressure, First World Problems, Social Justice, Pressure to Succeed and The Future.
The audience becomes part of the show using innovative handheld Zig Zag Controllers, technology developed by The Border Project, which allow them to work together with the performers and influence the direction of the narrative, characters and settings and ultimately find a solution. Young people in the audience can decide what topics are most important to them and how the performance is played out.
Each show is different with only 3 top issues being performed and a Q and A occurs at the conclusion of the show. A Kid Like Me combines interactivity with techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed in which spectators become active; exploring, analysing and transforming the reality in which they live and promoting social change through the arts.
A Kid Like Me was presented as part of Come Out Festival for Children in May 2015.
Devised, original concept and directed by Alirio Zavarce.
Written by Sally Hardy, Alirio Zavarce and the True North Youth Theatre Ensemble.
In 2016 we woon the inaugural Arts South Australia Peoples Choice Ruby Award for “A Kid Like Me” and our writers Sally Hardy and Alirio Zavarce won the Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE for Youth & Community Theatre, for the script. “A Kid Like Me” premiered at the Dream Big Children’s Festival in 2015 and represented Australia at the World Festival of Children’s Theatre in Stratford Canada in 2016.
Read the article on ABC National Radio
