The National Theatre Connections Festival is celebrating the importance of young people having access to the arts and theatre-making.

Each year the National Theatre commissions ten new plays for young people to perform and help bring together some of the most “exciting” theatre-makers of tomorrow.

There are 29 local festivals that take place across the country every year and during May, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch will be hosting four new productions.

On Saturday, May 7, audiences will have the chance to see two new plays performed by Green Shoes. Zero For The Young Dudes! is a dark play that follows inmates living in a strange summer camp and plotting a revolution. The School Film will also be performed and tells the story of young viewers absorbing the adventures of characters in a 1940s film –however, not all is as it seems.

The drama will continue the following day with Ormiston Rivers Academy performing The Monstrum, a gothic melodrama about the “terrifying” onset of adolescence.

This is followed by Status Update, which is a story about the things teenagers learn, believe and apparently have sussed out; everything from ridiculous myths to hard truths.

Connections is the National Theatre’s annual festival of new plays for youth theatres and schools. It gives young people experience of professional theatre-making and their experience mirrors that of a company producing a new play in any theatre in the country.

They create marketing campaigns, design sets and costumes, operate lighting and sound boards, stage-manage their performances and each year the Connections team travels the length of the country to support and encourage the participants and the drama teachers and youth theatre directors who curate the plays.

James Watson, learning and participation producer at the Queen’s Theatre, said: “We are thrilled to be hosting the National Theatre Connection’s Festival for the second year running.

"Partnering on such a powerful project really is a special part of our annual programming for young people, which gives voice and opportunity to local young people by providing access to professional theatre and practices.

"This year’s plays are a terrific mix of new writing, performed by some hugely talented and diverse young companies. This truly is a celebration of all that youth theatre is and can be."

Queen’s Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch, RM11 1QT, May 7 and May 8, 7.30pm, details: 01708 443333, queens-theatre.co.uk