YOUNGSTERS will be able to follow in the footsteps of Sir Ian McKellen when a new youth theatre course starts this summer.
Sir Ian was critically acclaimed for his role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear.
And budding actors will be able to get to grips with the Bard in a four week course offered by the brand new Bolton Youth Theatre.
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Emma Matthews, who founded the organisation, said: "I think there's a massive call for a big youth theatre in Bolton. I'm going to do a four week project over the summer holidays, ending in a full production."
Emma, who was born in Little Lever, worked as artistic director at the Drayton Court theatre in London.
She then ran the Factory Arts youth theatre in Winsford, Cheshire, for six years before moving back to her home town.
Emma said: "We had so many people come in to the theatre in Cheshire. From your usual stage school types to 16-year-old boys with ASBOs whose mums had made them come to get them off the streets.
"It was a wide range of people coming, and we got so much good work out of it. So many of them have gone on to work professionally in TV programmes or theatre - they're all doing really well.
"So moving back here and seeing that there were lots of dance academies, I wanted to make somewhere young people could go with really good professional people and put on a production."
The difference that being involved in the theatre can make to a life became particularly clear to Emma when she had one pupil who was on the verge of being expelled from his school. After sparking a love of drama, that pupil is now at university, studying drama and has plans to become a professional actor.
Emma has already been in touch with theatres in Manchester, who say they are interested in hosting the finished productions, and she says she is planning to have two groups working on shows - one to present a "straight" play, possibly Shakespeare, and the other to work on a musical.
She said: "We're hoping to hear from actors, writers, people who want to get involved in lighting, sound, publicity, every aspect of the theatre.
"We're going to have an assistant director on each play as well who will work alongside the professional director."
The course will take place over four weeks in August.
For more information, contact Emma on 07825 679632.
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