National Youth Theatre of Great Britain

National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, organization founded in 1956 by Michael Croft, a master at Alleyn's School, Dulwich, who had formerly been an actor, for the production of Shakespeare's plays. Drawn originally from Alleyn's and Dulwich College, the players eventually came from schools all over Britain. The first production was Henry V, which was followed by Troilus and Cressida (at the Edinburgh Festival), Hamlet (in London and on tour), and Antony and Cleopatra (at the Old Vic). The first contemporary play to be presented was David Halliwell's Little Malcolm and His Struggle against the Eunuchs at the Royal Court in 1965. Many well-known actors, among them Derek Jacobi and Helen Mirren, gained their first experience with the NYT, and the company formed a particularly productive relationship with Peter Terson, who wrote several plays for it. In 1971 the company took over the Shaw Theatre, originally erected as a conference centre and adapted by the local authority as a theatre to hold 510. The NYT established the Dolphin Theatre Company, a professional company aiming to provide high quality theatre related to the needs of schools and the interests of young people, including plays by new writers. The NYT company itself, which used the Shaw Theatre for its summer productions and made regular tours abroad, remained amateur. In 1981 its grant from the Arts Council was withdrawn. It was eventually replaced by commercial sponsorship, though the NYT no longer has its own theatre and the professional company had to be disbanded. The NYT continues to stage plays in London and undertakes much provincial and international touring, including the performance of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1989.