Lewisham Youth Theatre

Who we are

Lewisham Youth Theatre (LYT) creates excellent and inclusive theatre as a tool to improving the long-term well-being and life chances of Lewisham young people aged 3-24, helping them build the skills, resilience and ambition to achieve their potential.

Since 1987, we have provided inclusive drama, performance and technical theatre activities completely free of charge to young people from across Lewisham’s diverse communities, working from the core belief that artistic excellence and an environment of high expectation is key to expanding young people’s horizons and creating lasting transformation that will support them to achieve in any future environment. We do not audition and the majority of participants (minimum 70%) face significant disadvantage across a range of needs. Through individual progression mentoring and referrals from local services, we actively support those in need to engage, progress through our activities and move on to positive next steps in training and employment within a wide variety of fields. This level of support leads to high retention rates, with c.90% of users taking part in 3+ sessions and 85% completing their projects.

Since 2015, the quality of our programmes have been recognised by a Gold level London Youth quality mark, a quality assurance scheme accredited by City and Guilds.