WHEN Luke Rogers took up his post as artistic director of Canberra Youth Theatre exactly a year ago, he was determined not to be one of those “heads will roll” newcomers.

His predecessor in the role, Katie Cawthorne, was an exponent of physical theatre and developmental work while Rogers is a seasoned director of many famous plays, from “Waiting for Godot” to “Spring Awakening” – they could hardly be more different.

It certainly hasn’t been a case of “heads will roll”, as Rogers explains when we catch up for a coffee before the official launch.

Rather, in a measured approach to developing a program inevitably different from that of his predecessor, he has kept some things and moved away in other areas.

“I didn’t tinker with them too much,” he says of the company’s production and training programs.

As director, he inherited the collaborative work “Collapse”, involving writer Grace Morgan and movement artist, Chenoeh Miller, who has now gone, along with CYT’s former workshop coordinator Sammy Moynihan, to the new Belconnen Arts Theatre.

That fluidity in the theatre scene doesn’t bother Rogers and the interim period gave him a chance to “learn what the ‘beast’ known as Canberra Youth Theatre is… things take time and it’s a continual process of reflection”.

“We have members aged from seven to 25, including those on the way to production careers,” he notes. 

“You start out having fun, building confidence, I think that’s a common foundation in community and youth theatre.”

Rogers knows how it works, having himself started in theatre at about 15. He now proudly boasts of the company’s big successes in the world of adult theatre – playwrights Emily Sheen and Tommy Murphy and recent graduate Ethan Hamill, who has been accepted into NIDA’s three-year Technical Theatre and Stage Management course.

“Don’t forget Tim Ferguson from the Doug Anthony All Stars,” cuts in marketing and administration coordinator, Marni Mount. “And Liv Hewson, who’s been getting attention for her roles in Netflix movies.”

“We are not a drama school,” Rogers says. “We’re a theatre company and we want to ignite a spark. We say, ‘here are the tools, use them’.

“In 2020 I want to mix it all up and see what youth theatre is capable of. I want to develop a sense of rehearsal and see if it works for young people,” he says.

Audience members exhausted by a steady diet of self-devised reflections on youthful angst will be relieved to hear that all three works chosen for production are existing works – in other words, plays.

But they will be issue-based plays about intergenerational conversations which explore character, engage with audiences and that let participants say, “I have a voice”.

Rogers cautions that his job is not to put words in young people’s mouths but to support them.

First up for 2020 will be “Normal” by well-known playwright and former Canberran Katie Pollock, a kind of urban detective story in which the investigator is a teenage girl, Poppy, who has developed a tic which spreads through her body, her group of school friends and eventually the whole town. Eight characters will be played by four actors aged 18-25 in what Rogers calls “an allegory about young people not having agency”.

Then, teaming up with The Street Theatre, the company will present “I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You”, created by Brisbane company The Good Room. It’s a revealing one-hour tell-all, where a panel of up to 20 nine-to-13-year-olds from Canberra says it as it is, backed by high-impact video design and music.

The final production for the year “Impending Everyone” by playwright Michael Andrew Collins and directed by Rogers, with 14-17 year-olds, was originally commissioned and premiered by the Australian Theatre for Young People. It explores what happens when someone at school gains access to everyone’s internet history, messages and metadata.

But the play’s not the only thing.

Rogers is also keen to engage with young playwrights and emerging artists, so there will be masterclasses in technical matters, in physical theatre by actor Christopher Samuel Carroll, and in acting by Bell Shakespeare.

A new space for two or three resident artists in CYT’s new “Actors Company”, perhaps with “some coinage”, Rogers says, and supported by the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation and with Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres.

All in all, Rogers believes the 2020 season and its adjunct classes will fulfil the basic aim of the company to see “the voice of youth expressed through intelligent and challenging theatre”.

Canberra Youth Theatre 2020 season at a glance:

“Normal” by Katie Pollock, at the Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, May 20-23.

“I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You”, The Street Theatre, July 17-19.

“Impending Everyone”, Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, October 21-24.

Bookings to canberrayouththeatre.com.au or 6248 5057.