[short_description]
WHEN THEY GO LOW by Natalie Mitchell
MATE Young Actors is MATE Productions’ Youth Theatre, based on Liverpool’s Hope Street. MATE has been running since 2001, and has an reputation of producing excellent education, outdoor and community theatre, in Knowsley, Liverpool and across the North-West.
National Theatre Connections is one of the UK’s largest celebrations of youth theatre. Plays are commissioned for and about young people, from some of the best contemporary playwrights, and performed by schools and youth theatres all over the UK and Ireland.
In 2018, National Theatre Connections is working with up to 270 youth theatre and schools to stage ten newly commissioned plays, adding to the 160+ plays the National Theatre have commissioned for young people since 1995. All the companies will transfer their production to one of 28 Connections Partner Theatres across the UK. MATE Young Actors will be performing at the Lowry in May.
ABOUT THE PLAY
Social media is in a frenzy over pictures of a girl at a party on the weekend – no one knows quite what she got up to. When Miss Reef lectures the girls on taking more responsibility for their actions, Louise becomes enraged that the boys who took the pictures aren’t made accountable too. She wages war on the misogyny, but when she threatens school stalwart Scott and his claim to the school captain title, things get very nasty. A website appears, rating the girls on their appearance and shaming them for their actions.
When They Go Low is about everyday feminism and young people in an online world. When they go low, we go high.
Natalie Mitchell – Why I Wrote this Play:
“When They Go Low was inspired by the true story of a group of teenage girls in Manchester who attempted to set up a feminist society at their school, and the backlash they experienced. The play asks questions about why the ‘F’ word is so inflammatory, how misogyny has become normalised, and why equality might feel emasculating to some people, without necessarily finding the answers.”
Performances are at Hope Street Theatre at 7:30pm on the 12th of April, and 7pm on the 14th of April (doors open half an hour early).
