We are delighted to welcome to Crooked House four volunteers who come from Europe. They are supported by a variety of programmes to spend from six months to a year volunteering with Kildare Youth Theatre and other projects run by Crooked House. The first to arrive is Magdalena Gerlich from Austria. Magdalena, or Leni, is part of Austria's largest youth theatre, BiondekBühne (http://www.biondekbuehne.at) in Baden. We've had several collaborations with BiondekBühne over the yea

Some years ago I realised that the profile and personality of our youth theatre members had changed significantly over the past decade. Instead of attracting the eccentric young person, the one who was ‘born to perform’, or the generally extroverted boy or girl, we were now seeing greater numbers of shy people turning up who were quiet, withdrawn and hesitant about engaging with the work of a youth theatre. They were people who were dealing with stress and wanted to find an e