THE Courtyard's Youth Theatre has received specialist funding to create a brand new piece of drama commemorating the Great War.

The Heritage Lottery Fund’s Then & Now programme has granted £10,000 to the group of 19 Senior Youth Theatre members aged 16 to19, which will be used to create and stage a brand new piece entitled HeRo. The piece focuses on the stories of local people from the county who either fought in the war or were ‘heroes’ on the home front.

The Then & Now programme supports community projects commemorating The Great War. The funding will also support a range of educational initiatives to help the group learn about different aspects of WWI, including visits to the Imperial War Museum in London, Birmingham Museums and Hereford’s Light Infantry Museum. The young people will also be working closely with the City’s Library and Museum Services, taking advantage of the new Herefordshire History web archive, and enjoying learning sessions with local historians Bill Laws from Herefordshire Lore Magazine and Paul Murray, writer and director of the Canary Girls stage production about Rotherwas munitions factory workers.

The funding has also paid for scriptwriter, James Baldwin, who also wrote the script for last year’s intergenerational Youth Theatre production Stories on our Doorstep.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for the Senior Youth Theatre to get a really good insight into WWI and how it affected local people, by researching their stories and bringing them to life through this new drama," said Courtyard associate director David Duran. "All the young people are very excited about being involved in this new piece and being able to showcase their work. We are also really pleased to be working with James again on the script.”

HeRo will be at The Courtyard from Thursday, July 16 to Saturday, July 18 at 7.30pm. To book, call the box office on 01432 340555 or visit courtyard.org.uk