Mask to Break - a youth-led Legislative Theatre play on youth mental health

What’s it about?

Legislative Theatre is an incredibly powerful participatory approach for improving people’s lives by developing policy and practice through a performance based on people’s lived experiences. It was developed in Latin America, in the 1990s, by Augusto Boal. The play is led and developed by young people in Greater Manchester, based on their lived experiences of mental health issues.

This work is part of Mindset Revolution, a project funded by UKRI/RSA where young people create their spaces and ways of participating to talk about mental health and influence policy and practice on youth mental health support.

This event will appeal to people interested in participatory approaches to making change in their community, and anyone interested in youth mental health, whether a young person, parent or professional.

The event will take roughly 3 hours. Firstly you will watch a play the young people have created (45 mins). Then the audience discuss the play and propose ideas that could improve the characters’ lives (45 mins). There is a discussion about which ideas the audience would like to see put into effect, with the opportunity to propose amendments (30 mins), followed by a break (15 mins). At the end, a ‘policy team’, a group of policy makers and public sector leaders, propose commitments about what they will do to improve policy and practice in Greater Manchester (30 mins). As a member of the audience, you don't need to take to take part in the play - there are a number of other ways of participating.

Join us and help us shake things up!