It is, undoubtedly, an excellent time to be involved in the arts in Malta right now, with young performers having a myriad of opportunities available for training and performing in various art forms.

Over the past five years, Toi Toi, the Teatru Manoel Education Programme conceived and spearheaded by Arts Education Consultant Rosetta Debattista, has been instrumental in offering many such opportunities, with both the Teatru Manoel Youth Opera (TMYO) and Teatru Manoel Youth Theatre (TMYT) programmes thriving over the past few years.

In September both programmes will be holding auditions for the crop of young singers and actors for the forthcoming season which runs from October to June.

Now in its fourth season, TMYO offers a remarkable opportunity for young singers to learn and perform. The programme’s aim is to enrich Malta and Gozo’s emerging operatic talent. TMYO’s primary purpose is to offer intensive training and operatic experience to those who wish to pursue a career as singers.

Both programmes will be holding auditions for the crop of young singers and actors for the forthcoming season which runs from October to June

This programme acts as a semi-professional performing ground for singers aged between 18 and 35. Weekly sessions for two to three hours on Saturday mornings offer valuable opportunities for young singers to explore all aspects of opera through weekly workshops and to take part in performances in Teatru Manoel’s productions and more.

In the past, students have worked with conductors Brian Schembri and Mark Gauci and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, they have been coached in French diction and attended various master classes.  Participants have also performed in concerts in the Teatru Manoel courtyard and its Studio theatre, at Notte Bianca, in Gozo, and of course in 2015’s acclaimed production of Dido and Aeneas.

Auditioning for the Teatru Manoel Youth Theatre.

This year’s students are currently in rehearsal for Offenbach’s wacky operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, which will be staged at Teatru Manoel in October.

The students chosen from this year’s auditions will focus on a commissioned piece based on the Maltese legend l-Isperanza tal-Mosta. Composed by Tom Armitage with a libretto by Eddie Wildman and directed by Chris Gatt, l-Isperanza will be performed in the Studio theatre in May 2017.

TMYO members can audition and are prioritised when casting the Valletta 2018 Teatru Manoel Opera, usually held in October.

Auditions for Teatru Manoel Youth Opera will take place on September 21 at 10am.

Established in February 2012, the goal of TMYT is to nurture talented young actors through training and performance opportunities. TMYT offers a first-class training and performance experience for young people aged between 16 and 25. During weekly intensive three-hour session held on Saturday afternoons, Youth Theatre members work alongside professional directors as well as choreographers, musicians, designers and technicians, with the company attending workshops and master classes with world-renowned companies such as Les Enfants Terribles.

The principal tutor for TMYT’s weekly sessions is Denise Mulholland.

Under Mulholland’s direction, the Youth Theatre has already produced several memorable works. Its first production in 2012 was the devised piece Peculiar Children. In 2013, TMYT produced Club, a piece commissioned for the 2013 Żigużajg International Arts Festival for Children and Young People. In 2014 it presented the original musical Three Sunsets. Another devised piece, Rubbish, was produced in 2016.

Hailed as a top-notch youth theatre group by the National Theatre of Scotland and London-based Theatre Chickenshed, TMYT participants have also had the opportunity to work abroad, having performed Club at The Tin Forest International Theatre Festival as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, which ran in conjunction with the Glasgow Commonwealth Games that year. The group will also be taking Club to the Chrysalis Festival at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh this season.

“The theatre’s backstage rehearsal rooms and Studio Theatre are buzzing with youngsters every weekend,” says Debattista.  “These two programmes are home to so many young actors and singers… I feel that these youth programmes play an important part in carving out these aspiring artists’ futures.” Auditions for the Teatru Manoel Youth Theatre will be held on September 24 at 2pm.

For an audition pack send an e-mail to admin@teatrumanoel.com.mt by September 14.