Positive Stories for Negative Times is a new national participatory project by Wonder Fools in association with Traverse Theatre. This innovative and exciting project responds to the lack of physical spaces for young people to participate in creative activities due to the pandemic, and instead allows them to come together to make new work online or live in the space if government guidelines allow.

Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theatre have co-commissioned some of the UK’s most exciting voices to write new plays for young people including Sabrina Mahfouz, Stef Smith, Chris Thorpe, Bea Webster and Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse. The plays are written specifically for the times we are living in and will be free to participating groups between the ages of 8 and 25, from September 2020—July 2021. Groups will be sent a handbook of exercises to help explore the play of their choice, and then will be invited to record and upload their performance to our interactive map, which will share and celebrate all the brilliant work from young people across the UK and beyond.

The anthology of plays and handbook is published by Methuen and can be purchased here: www.wonderfools.org/store