Changing the Game
How ATYP is redefining youth theatre for a new generation.
On his first day as Artistic Director of the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Hayden Tonazzi opened his inbox to find an email from a former colleague, now working at the Sydney Opera House, congratulating him on his appointment. In the exchange, Tonazzi casually mentioned the company’s award-winning production Saplings, his debut project when he joined ATYP as Associate Artist in 2023. Within hours, the show was pencilled in for a week-long season in The Studio for the 2026 season.
For Tonazzi, it was more than a lucky break. It was a sign of things to come.
“It’s the first time in 18 years ATYP will return to the Sydney Opera House.
“Saplings is about young people’s experience with the law and justice system, featuring a team with 80 per cent First Nations young creatives and cast. In 2026, we’ll take it on our biggest national tour yet, to 11 venues across five states and territories. It’s also now a Victorian syllabus text, so school students will study it and then go and see it at Arts Centre Melbourne!”
As part of the Saplings tour, ATYP will run songwriting workshops in regional towns, inviting young people to create verses and beats that will be woven into performances.
“Imagine seeing your work on stage at the Opera House.”
A legacy of imagination
That same sense of ‘what if’ possibility Tonazzi felt on day one, is reflected in ATYP’s legacy and the impact the company has had in its role nurturing Australia’s budding stage and screen talent for more than six decades.
“That's what ATYP does, and why it’s so important. We’re all about putting young people’s stories on stage and showing young people what’s possible.
“In the early 1960s, ATYP was founded as a way to help extend young minds to imagine and create stories through theatre. It was driven in part as a response to the arrival of television in people’s living rooms.”
At the time, Tonazzi explains, the impact of television on children was viewed as limiting their imagination - the idea being they would learn to see the world without needing to create a visual image in their minds as with books. So, theatre for young people was a way to help them engage with the world of storytelling to spark their imagination.
For more than 60 years, the company has helped generations of young artists, creatives and crew fall in love with theatre, many of whom have gone onto pursue long careers and achieve global success, namely alumni members like Nicole Kidman, Toni Collette, Rose Byrne and Sydney Theatre Company’s artistic director, Mitchell Butel.
Tonazzi understands first-hand the way theatre captures the young imagination. “I fell in love with theatre as a kid,” he says. “My parents saved up to take us to musicals at Christmas, to shows like The Wizard of Oz, Oliver, Billy Elliot, The Lion King. I remembered seeing young people performing in central roles, so that inspired me from a young age.”
For Tonazzi, his appointment at the age of 28 was another signal of what’s possible at a theatre company where young voices are the focus. “When I got this role, someone said to me, ‘This is so exciting, not just for you, but for all of us because it feels like someone in our generation has a seat at the table.”
“ATYP is all about creating opportunities for young people to tell their stories, not just to perform stories written by adults. It's about giving a voice to young people.”
Tonazzi sees ATYP as a training ground for life, not just the arts. “Storytelling, collaboration, creativity - these are all transferable skills in every profession. Even if from ATYP, you enter a non-Arts job, you’ll carry them with you.”
The Walsh Bay Factor
ATYP’s home at Walsh Bay Arts Precinct enhances the opportunities for young people. “For our young people, they can see they’re a priority, they belong here. It legitimises theatre by young and emerging artists as part of our cultural ecology.”
“I think it's what's happening down here is really magical,” Tonazzi says. “The idea of nine different arts organisations coming together, all with different artforms and ways of storytelling is cultivating a really lively Sydney arts precinct.”
He dreams of future collaborations. “We have beautiful relationships with our neighbours, and the way the Sydney Festival activates the whole precinct, it’s really fantastic. We're just discovering the potential!
“Audience development isn’t just about one company – it’s about making Walsh Bay Arts Precinct the place for live performance.”
Artist development
Stepping into the role six months ago, Tonazzi began by re-strategising around the basic fundamentals of what ATYP is all about, and why it matters.
Tonazzi saw that to maintain the company’s focus on developing the next generation in a safe space, you first need to keep young people engaged in what theatre means to them. Tonazzi’s approach is to play to the artists’ natural strengths, in a way that develops them alongside mentors. His mantra is ‘programming artists over productions’.
“It’s not my job to be the artistic director who says, ‘Here are the four shows I love.’ Instead, we’re having conversations more like ‘what is the show that is going to best platform you next year?’ and ‘what part of this production is going to challenge you that last final bit?’ It's more of a dialogue as we get to know them as young artists.”
“I want to create a pipeline from age 10 to 26, where young people can grow safely, and develop their voice.”
ATYP is building that pipeline through its artist development programs with industry heavyweight mentors like Rebecca Massey, Matilda Ridgway and Victoria Falconer.
“Maybe it’s due to the digital divide between the generations that young people sometimes forget the generations above us hold so much information and experience we can learn from.”
“We're bringing back mentorship and really encouraging young people to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others.”
Space to imagine
The company understands its young people need spaces to explore and experiment, where they can take risks and try new things. “It’s about stripping away the pressure of high production values,” Tonazzi explains. “We want spaces where young people can test ideas quickly, like they do online.”
As part of its 2026 season, ATYP will launch The Popsy, a new black box theatre at Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, which is designed to be a blank canvas for innovative ideas.
The inaugural Popsy season will showcase three shows including The Last Train to Madeline by Callum Mackay, an immersive dreamscape set under a train underpass, which the audience walks through. The show is about two young people who feel held back in their rural community and are dreaming of more. At the other end of the production design spectrum will be Islander, where two performers build an entire world with sound. “Two women create a musical soundscape, with literally just two microphones, and a little looping station, so it builds and builds.”
‘We’re going big and also minimalist, celebrating storytelling in radically different ways.”
Reframing theatre for a digital generation
Staying both relevant and sustainable is a challenge for any theatre company. For a theatre company focused on young people, staying relevant means embracing rapidly shifting trends, ideas and ways to connect.
Sixty years since the advent of ‘imagination-killing’ television, the screens are smaller and even more ubiquitous. Young people are consuming content faster than ever, on screens, in bedrooms rather than theatres in an endlessly scrolling, narrative-less feed. Traditional models of audience development are faltering. “We’re losing youth voices on main stages,” Tonazzi says. “And no one’s talking about attention spans. TikTok is six seconds long. How do we compete with that? Who’s going to wait for a big reveal in the third act!”
For Tonazzi, the solution isn’t to fight screens. It’s to meet young people where they are. “They’re already creating content, rough, ready, responsive. Theatre needs to feel just as alive.”
Why Youth Theatre Matters
In an era of individualism and identity exploration, Tonazzi argues that theatre offers something screens can’t: community. “Young people are grappling with who they are earlier. They need spaces to tell their stories, not just consume someone else’s.”
ATYP’s commitment to developing young writers to tell young people’s stories takes centre stage at its Intersection Festival. Emerging playwrights are paired with teenage performers to create short plays that resonate deeply with school audiences. “Teachers tell us their students come alive reading these scripts,” Tonazzi says. “They see themselves on the page.”
“If we lose young people, it’s game over. But if we give them space to dream, fail, and create, we secure the future of theatre.”
Check out Australian Theatre for Young People’s 2026 Program and grab tickets.
About ATYP
The Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) is Australia’s national youth theatre company. For over sixty years, ATYP has launched the careers of hundreds of artists and created pathways for young Australians to see themselves reflected on stage. Based at The Rebel Theatre on Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay, ATYP develops and presents new work, tours nationally, and delivers artist development and education programs that connect young creatives across the country.