A drama school that isn't always about the drama

Lizi Patch is doing something quietly revolutionary.

- by Charles Brown

A director and writer, Patch has been leading the Leeds Grand Youth Theatre since 2012, when she co-founded the venture.

As the woman leading LGYT, over the last dozen-or-so-years she has shepherded an annual cohort of around 60 young people aged eight to 18 each year to stage shows from Little Shop of Horrors to The Addams Family and, this July, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So far, so admirable, but not so out of the norm; there are youth arms attached to most theatres around the country. Then in 2018 she was finally able to launch the passion project she had dreamed of creating, Leeds Actors in Training. Also attached to the Leeds Grand Theatre, LAIT is Patch's unusual and revolutionary idea.

"The idea was to set something up to train young people who wanted to be actors but for whatever reason couldn't go down the 'traditional' route, or perhaps aren't one hundred per cent sure it's what they want to do," says Patch.

This is a hint to what makes what Patch is doing unusual. Drama schools tend to be the sort of places that want its students all in.