Youth Music Theatre (YMT) - Riverside Studios

The Youth Music Theatre (YMT) has announced a short Summer season at the Riverside Studios 2, in Hammersmith, west London, from 20 Aug to 1 Sep 2013.

According to Brian Haw, 2 to 22 Aug 2013. Original Concept by Eddie Latter. Book and Lyrics by Sarah Nelson. Music by James Atherton. Directed by Ellie Jones. Explores the responses of young people from across the world to 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and the deaths of British soldiers. Brian Haw, 'the extraordinary' anti-war campaigner, died in 2011 having camped outside the Houses of Parliament for 11 years in protest first at the sanctions against Iraq and then against the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Working with Brian's son, Pete, writers James Atherton and Sarah Nelson and director Ellie Jones, have created a 'fascinating new political work'.

The Dark Tower , 24 to 26 Aug 2013. Script and Score by Conor Mitchell. Choreography by Rachel Birch Lawson, designed by Chris de Wilde. In celebration of the 2013 Britten centenary, YMT has commissioned acclaimed Northern Irish composer and writer Conor Mitchell to create a new stage work - The Dark Tower, a response to the 1946 radio play (The Dark Tower) written by Ulster poet Louis MacNiece and scored by Benjamin Britten. The radio play was inspired by Robert Browning's 1855 poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came and Mitchell returns to some of this source material to craft a new allegory for the 21st century.

Variété , 29 Aug to 1 Sep 2013 (In repertoire), by Lindsay Kemp, Carlos Miranda is recreating and re-arranging the score. Directed by Kinny Gardner, an original cast member and a soloist in the Kemp Company for over 20 years. It is designed by Chris de Wilde. Vision of a seedy and mysterious world of intrigue, mayhem and splendour. 1936 Hamburg, Germany. A wandering naïf joins a seedy sideshow circus, the eccentric cast of which are rarely what they seem. As his success playing 'The Bird Man' grows, so does his psychotic obsession with the deaf trapeze dancer Maria.

Burnt Out Souls, 30 Aug to 1 Sep 2013 (In repertoire). Concept and direction by Hilary Westlake, music by Alexander Rudd. Looks at themes of love and loss but from a female perspective. The world as we know it ceased to exist after the great illness. A handful of survivors must train up the burnt out youth in order to rebuild society. But who decides what the new personalities will be like?

NOTE:This is Youth Music Theatre (YMT - Founded in 2003) , not the National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT - founded in 1976)