Tenderfoot (Youth Arts)
Tenderfoot is The Civic Theatre, Tallaght’s apprentice theatre programme for second level students. Each year, Tenderfoot offers fifty Transition Year students from schools in South Dublin County the opportunity to learn about theatre by making theatre. Established in 2007, in collaboration with South Dublin County Council Arts Office and Veronica Coburn as theatre artist-in-residence, the programme is now in its thirteenth year.
So far, 550 Transition Year students from eleven schools in South Dublin County have completed the programme. 204 of those young people have written plays and, of those 204 original works, 79 have been produced. Over 3,000 students from schools in South Dublin have been to The Civic Theatre to see the plays written by their peers.
In 2015, a volume of plays, ‘Tenderfoot: A Volume of Plays By and For Young People’, featuring thirteen plays and three monologues written by a number of Tenderfoot’s fifteen/sixteen year-old playwrights, was published by The Civic Theatre in association with South Dublin County library. The work in the volume is central to a new drama module, ‘Page to Stage’, offered to secondary school teachers by Tenderfoot and The Civic Theatre as part of the new Junior Cycle Training for Teachers programme.
Tenderfoot has always worked in close collaboration with schools, aligning with Transition Year and its broader approach to curriculum. Transition Year offers students the possibility to try new activities and explore different ways of learning, with an emphasis on experiencing real world work environments. Utilising a model of apprenticeship, Tenderfoot provides a space where young people can actively learn about theatre by working alongside professional playwrights and theatre artists.
Tenderfoot Moving Forward Bridging the Gap Between Arts and Education
Tenderfoot is funded by The Civic, South Dublin County Council and the Arts Councils Young Ensembles Scheme.
Download TENDERFOOT Press Release 2018
Young Ensembles Scheme 2011
Young people from youth arts groups awarded funding through the Arts Council’s Young Ensembles Scheme (YES) 2011 participated in a showcase and networking event on 31 March 2012 in Sligo.
