CANBERRA Youth Theatre is moving house, the company’s jubilant artistic director and CEO Luke Rogers told a crowd gathered in Gorman Arts Centre courtyard on Wednesday night.

For years the 50-plus year-old theatre company has based itself in Gorman Arts Centre’s central Batman Street wing, but has now moved into to the theatre/gallery/office space on the corner of Batman Street and Currong Street North.

The additional space means a dedicated rehearsal and workshop studio, room for emerging artists to develop their own projects, and a shared common room for young people, artistic director where, Rogers said, they would be able  “to rehearse, to write, to meet, to share a meal, and have a chat… space to dream.”

The announcement was made at the theatre launch of the CYT 2024 season.

After a preamble outlining a collaboration with Erth Theatre during “Enlighten 2024” and a reprise of the popular “12 Hour Theatre Project”, Rogers revealed his  key plans, including the new “Open Studio” artist residences offering free, flexible studio space.

As well, the “Emerging Creatives” will offer training in design, stage management and all things backstage, while Emerge Company, led by Christopher Carroll, will now be enhanced by a partnership with The National Institute of Dramatic Art to give participants the chance to create a new devised work for presentation at Canberra Theatre Centre.

The Young Critics initiative, we heard, would  allow younger voices into the conversation to “critically and respectfully reflect on theatre” and Rogers is off to Ireland to see how his counterparts there have been doing it  for the past 30 years.

The Writers’ Ensemble, to be led by writer Julian Larnach, will be delivered online by leading Australian playwrights and the Creative leaders program from May to December may lead to a pool of advisers.

Rogers himself will lead masterclasses in directing, while new works-in-progress will be seen in “Scratch” nights at Smith’s Alternative.

All this will run alongside the regular weekly workshops for ages 7-18 held at Gorman Arts Centre, Belco Arts, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre and Tuggeranong Arts Centre.

Holiday workshops will continue apace during every school holiday and the company will move to support local teachers and inspire students.

Productions for 2024 include “Work, But This Time Like You Mean It” by Honor Webster-Mannison, winner of the 2022 Emerging Playwright Commission, to take place at The Courtyard Studio, September 20-29. A sharp look at younger people’s first experiences in the workplace, the surreal comedy was represented last night by a fast-food server looking very much like  an actor.

“The Department of Responsible Adulting,” [the acronym is “Dora”] created by CYT members will be staged in a real office space in Canberra during October.

This last play is a site-specific performance taking audiences into the belly of a new public service run entirely by children.

“We need all the help we can get to whip these adults into shape,” said one young actor giving us a taste of what was to come.

The final announcement at the launch was that of the $16,880 Holding Redlich Emerging Playwright Commission, won by Sonia Dodd, for her play, “How to Destroy the Beep Test in Five Days”. In it,  a group of final-term primary school students conjure up a grand plan to destroy a hated test of very little value and dubious ethics.