Welcome to Leeds Children's Theatre

FAO Members of Leeds Children's Theatre, their families and friends.
During this time, when we have to pause our regular activities including workshops and productions, we have created an alternative website which we'll use to post useful links to other creative activities and productions that are being made available online.
Also our workshop teams and youth reps will try and post the occasional piece on their blogs.
Link to Leeds Children's Theatre - on pause!

All performances of Fantastic Mr Fox have been cancelled this week.
The theatre has closed due to the current health crisis.
If you pre-purchased tickets please read the information posted on the Carriageworks website.

Thank you, on behalf of everyone here at Leeds Children's Theatre, for your support and understanding.
(updated 16.45pm, 17 March 2020)

Fantastic Mr Fox, Carriageworks Theatre Leeds. 18-21 March 2020
We were forced to abandon our latest production, due the local authority's closure of the Carriageworks Theatre, following government advice regarding the Covid 19 virus.

We are determined that Leeds Children's Theatre will be back performing In the Carriageworks Theatre, so if you'd pre-booked tickets to see Fantastic Mr Fox (in March 2020) please provide your contact details below & we'll send you the dates once we have them.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding.

Update, Saturday 21 March 2020: It is clear that no one knows how long the current health crisis will last, so we are unable to offer any certainty about when Leeds Children's Theatre will be able to resume it's activities. This is obviously upsetting for our members, especially those that were wanting to bring Fantastic Mr Fox to the Carriageworks Theatre this week. No-one could have anticipated that this would be how Leeds Children's Theatre would be marking it's 85th anniversary, but like all other theatre groups we have pushed the "pause button" until further notice. I'm sure members and audience alike will have realised that we can't offer any guidance to when we might be ready to perform again in theatre. What we do know is that, for the foreseeable future, we have cancelled all members workshops, meetings, rehearsals etc and of course there will be no Kirkstall Festival for us to attend this July.
Members will be notified of any updates via email and/or our private Facebook Group - if you're a current member of Leeds Children's Theatre but not yet joined the private Facebook Group we'll be emailing invitations to sign up in the next few days (If you don't do Facebook don't worry - we'll still be emailing current members if/when there's any news to share).
Looking to the future we will of course follow the government's advice, but the society will survive ... however long it takes before we can again resume our activities.

It is with great sadness that we announce the recent passing of
Judith Unwin (Judith Daniel)
Our dear friend, and the President of Leeds Children's Theatre

Judith was interviewed by a local radio station back in 2013, about Leeds Children's Theatre and her forthcoming production of Pinocchio.
Listen below

A huge thank you to everyone involved in our November 2019 production at the Carriageworks Theatre, Johnny and the Dead. We received some lovely feedback from the audience during the week. Congratulations to Dan and the entire cast, production team, crew and of course parents who volunteered their time too. Thank you. (6-9 November 2019)

Leeds Children's Theatre celebrates it's 85th anniversary (1935-2020)
Did you visit the theatre to watch one of our productions - a school trip or a family treat perhaps? Perhaps you were a member of the society 'back in the day'?

Amazing but true - it's now 85 years since the group was officially formed.
Some of you may have noticed that a lot of our archive photographs and images have been removed from the archives website and Flickr recently. We're hoping to update & upload the archive again during 2020, but in the meantime if you have any memorabilia or stories that you'd like us to share on the website please get in touch. Thank you

All Leeds Children's Theatre activities including workshops, rehearsals, performances, meetings, auditions etc are cancelled until further notice due to the current health crisis. Members will be informed of any changes, and of course we will let you all know when we can resume our activities.

Dadstastic Day 2019, members help to entertain the guests

Hundreds of children were in Leeds City Museum today (Father's Day 16 June), attending Dadstastic 2019, but we managed to catch a quiet moment to snap special guests Mrs Sylvia Liberty, Peter Pan, Wendy, Mr Wolf, Mr Toad, Red Riding Hood, Alderman Thomas Bowler. A big thank you to our Leeds Children's Theatre actors and helpers for giving their time today to this family friendly event.

Kirkstall Festival 2019, our stall before the event opened to the public at 11am.

A big “Thank you” to the members who came to help at Kirkstall Festival this year, and of course to all our visitors. It was busy, and the rain downpour held off until we’d finished which is always a bonus! We met up with a couple of past members, including Robert who was a member and performed with us in the early 1960s. Great to catch up.

The extra 13+ Workshop Group evening sessions during July and August 2019, were a great success and ended with a short performance from "The Smell of the Sea". (An original play written by Thomas, one of the 13+ Workshop Group).
The specially invited audience included parents, friends and committee members who enjoyed a taster of the play, which we hope to stage in full later in the season.
Many thanks to all involved, and to the small team that ran the summer workshops.

Leeds Children's Theatre were nominated at the Child Friendly Leeds Awards 2019, in the Inspiring Creativity Through Arts and Culture category.

We attended “Celebrating Small Groups and Small Charities in Leeds 2019” with the Lord Mayor (& hundreds of other people who run & volunteer for Leeds groups)

Testimonials from a few of our past members of Leeds Children's Theatre ... read. It's Always Great To Hear From Past Members, Especially When They're Letting Us Know About Projects That They're Working On. We also have an alumni group on Facebook to share news and help past members keep in touch.

Parents of members, please ask about how you might help the society ... as chaperones, with publicity, using your craft skills to make costumes and props, assisting front of house, helping to build and paint scenery, using or learning new technical skills in the theatre, etc

Please support the campaign to save the home of community arts in Leeds at the Carriageworks Theatre (more ...)

Originally started in 1935, and bound by constitution two years later
"The aim of Leeds Children's Theatre is to produce plays suitable for children, the players to be either children or adults or both, as is necessary for the production".
This was drawn into the constitution in April 1937 and it remains the aim of Leeds Children's Theatre today.