Are you a kid like me? I don’t mean a 14 year old school kid with her first pimple….I mean someone who, if given the chance, will take a risk, grab an opportunity and run with it? If you are, then you know what it’s like to see something amazing right in front of you…and decide you will do whatever it takes, to get it.

For me, and 19 other kids from Adelaide’s northern suburbs what’s in front of us is the chance to perform at the World Festival of Children’s Theatre in Canada in June of this year.

CANADA! A World Festival that’s been running for over 2 decades.

And we’ve been INVITED to perform there!

But you can’t just turn up and put on a show – there’s a whole process of applications and jury deliberations – and out of all the applications from every corner of the world, they chose US - kids from the northern suburbs, some who had never seen a show, let alone performed in one, before last year!

But they want our show, “A Kid Like Me” at the Festival…and we are doing everything we can to get there!  And I mean everything! We’ve had a monster garage sale, a Quiz Night, sausage sizzles, dog washing, craft fairs….so far through group fundraising and individual efforts, we’ve raised over $26,000 – but we need three times that to get the whole ensemble on a plane to Canada.
And that’s where you come in – can you help us seize this opportunity? Do you have a few dollars to spare? Are you willing to invest in us? We may not be able to give you a monetary “return” on your investment, but if we can make it to Canada, it will change every one of our lives for the better, and it will show other kids they can achieve amazing things, and show the rest of the world that South Australia can produce world class children’s theatre.



"A Kid Like Me" is presented by 19 members of the True North Youth Theatre Senior Ensemble and is directed by Alirio Zavarce. This show invites young audiences to identify and respond to common issues for young people. This show has original content created by the ensemble and the opportunity to present this on an international stage has a huge impact for the entire youth theatre sector in this country. This is the very first time that the zig zag controller or voting system developed by The Border Project will be used in an international Festival context. This promotes Australia's cutting edge use of technology that created a new form of engagement and audience interaction. This combined with the social issues that "A Kid Like Me" explores will promotes a new and exciting theatre form that was developed in Adelaide onto the international theatre stage. True North Youth Theatre Ensemble engages young people from marginalised communities who may not have had previously access to any arts based instruction. This international tour represents a huge opportunity to not only them but for True North Youth Theatre Ensemble as a contemporary youth theatre company.

"A Kid Like Me, presented by True North Youth Theatre and directed by Alirio Zavarce, invites audiences to identify and respond to common issues for young people. With a repertoire of nine plays to choose from, the audience uses electronic voting devices to select themes such as social anxiety, peer pressure, bullying, “sexyfication” and the future.
Expertly managed by Zavarce and writer Sally Hardy, with thrifty design by Kathryn Sproul, A Kid Like Me is a version of Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre at its enjoyable best: vividly presenting life situations and giving young people a chance to interact and register their opinions. "   MURRAY BRAMWELL THE AUSTRALIAN

Any little bit help us to go an represent  Australia and to learn and participate at this amazing festival
But this awesome opportunity is also very expensive.
We have 20 ensemble members  
$6000 gets two airfares for the Ensemble.
All the ensemble is doing they own personal fundraising and we all as a group are doing a lot of different events.
We have collected already over $26000 but that is only enough for 8 members.
We do not want to leave anyone behind, please help us get this amazing young artists some who come from very humble backgrounds have the opportunity to take their work to an international festival and learn and connect from hundreds of other companies from around the world

This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase original Australian Work and technology in an international context. This will be a life changing experience for this theatre company.  It is a huge endeavour  but the main obstacle we see for this project is that if we don't earn the money we need, we will not be able to send all of the cast overseas which also means our show will have to be changed as characters have been left behind as well as cast menbers :(

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