The Southern Youth Translators’ Ensemble? Adelaide’s SYTE into the future
Ben Mylius

‘Translating’ seems like a good way to sum up the goals of Adelaide’s Southern Youth Theatre Ensemble, SYTE, for its next couple of years. What will the ensemble be translating? Several different things. First, energy: SYTE has to find ways to translate the enthusiasm of its young members into focus and expertise, to develop their skills as performers and artists. Second, creativity: the ensemble, particularly as it workshops original productions, has to find ways to translate the realities of young people’s experiences into a theatrical language that can be understood by the theatre-going and broader adult community. And third, positivity: as it moves forward, SYTE has to keep finding ways to translate the intangibles it offers its participants – the confidence, friendships, life skills, and sense of community – into measurable, tangible outcomes, to speak to government and funding bodies, and convince them of its suitability for funding into the future.

SYTE past and present
SYTE has its roots in Backstares Theatre, a community theatre company founded in the mid 1980s with a focus on issue-based and social commentary theatre. This focus is clearly evident in the productions the ensemble mounts today: their latest, Retaliation, was an ambitious, large-scale rock musical exploring the impacts of violence in young people’s lives.

Like all not-for-profit youth the…