Show Development Day

Despite some stormy weather, our Show Development trip to the Tall Ship was a great day out, with a guided tour of the Glenlee, a Tall-Ship-fact treasure hunt, and the story of the Glenlee's very own ghost!

NTS Exchange - Inverness

The Blue Roof group wowed the NTS Exchange festival in Inverness with their piece, Perceptions, and had a brilliant week catching up with old friends from their St Andrews Byre exchange group, making new friends from all across the country, and taking part in workshops and performances.  Keep an eye on the website for a full feedback report from the group, and all the photos and stories from the festival as and when we get them.  Toonspeak have been invited to re-mount Perceptions for the National Festival of Youth Theatre in October, so they've now got a chance to develop the piece even further.  Well done to everyone who made the project such a success!  

The Big Splash Character Competition Winners!

Thank you to every one who took part in our Create a Character Competition at the Big Splash at Keppochill Campus on Saturday 5th April.  Click here to see the winners and some of the other crazy characters that were created!

Summer Break 2008

Our summer design weeks run from Monday 7th Friday 18th July, every day at the Toonspeak studio 11am-4pm.  We're designing the set and costume for our summer show Tall Ship Tales, as well as learning about film, animation, and even recording a Pirate Boyband song for the show!  Places are free but limited, phone the office now to book a place or check our Outreach pages for more details.

1 in 100 and Rhythm of Life

Following on from the success of their performances at YSG's Youth Work Week celebrations in November, groups from Toonspeak and Purple Porridge were given the funding to remount the shows for family and friends.  On 26th February 2008 at the Platform Theatre they did exactly that; it was great to see so many friends and family turn up to support the performers and yet again the groups produced excellent shows. 

Many thanks to the Community Planning Partnership for the Community Voices money that made this all possible!

Create Yourself

Are you 16-25 and interested in a career in the arts? If you’ve ever wondered how to make it big in the music industry, or how
you get to be an actor, or even just enjoy art, music, drama, circus, design,
sound production or dance, then Toonspeak and NGARN could have the project for you!

There are two different sessions taking place inNorth Glasgow . For more information click here or call Toonspeak on 0141 552 0234.

2007 Christmas Cabaret

Thanks to our hard working committee of young people the Christmas Cabaret was a great success, with around 60 young people from all over North Glasgow joining up at St.Paul's Church Hall in Provanmill and performing for friends and family.  There was a big party afterwards for the performers, and a great time was had by all.  See the Empowerment pages for more information about being in a Toonspeak Committee, and there are more photos on our Bebo page!

Click here to see all the pictures from the Cabaret.

Shop online and Raise Money for Toonspeak

There’s now a new and easy way for you to help us raise funds for Toonspeak - simply by shopping online! 

easyfundraising is a shopping directory that features some of your favourite online stores, including Amazon, Ebay, John Lewis, Toys’R’Us, I-Tunes, HMV and over 400 others. All you have to do is use the links on the easyfundraising site whenever you shop online and, at no extra cost to you, we'll receive a free donation of up to 15% from every purchase you make. It really is that simple!

It’s completely FREE to register and use and you still shop with each retailer in exactly the same way.

 All you need to do is visit http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/toonspeak and when you register, select Toonspeak Young People's Theatre as the organisation you want to support.

Also if you make the following search engine into your home page - http://toonspeak.easysearch.org.uk/ - Toonspeak will receive a donation of 1p every time you make a search – doesn’t sound like much - but could add up over the year if lots of people use it!  Thanks

Toonspeak wins Talk Talk Innovation in the Community Award

Toonspeak is one of only 30 organisations in the UK to have been awarded a Talk Talk Innovation in the Community Award.  We have been awarded a grant of £2,000 as well as receiving free TalkTalk broadband for a year.

The money will be used to create content and develop internet games for the members page on the website.  If you'd like to get involved with the design of these new games just let us know.

Heather and Emily even got the chance to go and collect the award from the House of Lords in London last Wednesday 14th November - where they not only collected the award but also got some lovely cakes, scones and sandwiches! 

All Different All Equal

Six Toonspeak members created a production around the theme of  mental health and wellbeing (with a little help from Heather and Carole) during an intensive three week rehearsal process.  The finished show "One in One Hundred" was performed on Saturday 10th November as part of  Youth Work Week and was a great success...in fact, the group have been offered funding to re-stage the show in the new year!

October Week 2007

Everyone had a great week making their sock puppets, creating characters for them and putting on a show on Friday afternoon   for friends and family. Look in our Outreach pages for more photos, and check out the singing puppet video on our Bebo page!

Toonspeak at the National Festival of Youth Theatre 2007

13 Toonspeak members took part in the National Festival of Youth Theatre at RSAMD in Glasgow in 2007. They took part in 3 exciting days of performances, workshops and events with other youth theatres from around Scotland. John Kenna, Debbie Spiers and Daniel Correia also took part in Generate which involved them creating an entire performance from scratch and then performing it in one weekend.

Stars Come out in Force for The Riddle of Sir Roger

Over 30 young people recently took part in Toonspeak’s latest production The Riddle of Sir Roger. The show, which was performed in venues in North Glasgow before going to Kelvingrove Museum, was performed to big audiences who enjoyed the fantastic atmosphere at Kelvingrove and the fabulous performances of the young people.

The show was even supported by several television stars. BAFTA winning actor Iain Robertson came to see the show on Friday night and River City actors June Brogan and Michelle O'Brien dropped into rehearsals to show their support (Iain and June used to come to Toonspeak!!) Read what Iain Robertson had to say about the show here.