Youthquake Radio Drama brings the voice of Waterford Teens to the airwaves
Youthquake, a radio drama project that has been developed by WLR with funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, launched on air on WLR on Tuesday April 2nd.
The project has been running since January and involves TY students from Newtown School, De La Salle, The Ursline and Ard Scoil Na Mara in Tramore, who have been developing the storylines and scripts for the 5 half hour plays over the past three months.
The plays were recorded at The Broadcast Centre in Ardkeen using the voices of the students and are due to air on WLR every Tuesday evening, just after the 6pm news, for the next 5 weeks.
The storylines follow the lives of 5 teenagers in an un-named secondary school in Waterford as they battle with everyday teenage issues such as friendships, sexuality, online bullying and family trauma. The story of the 5 teenagers overlap across the 5 weeks with a dramatic climax played out in the skate park in Waterford’s peoples park.
The project was the brainchild of WLR presenter Aoibhin Fallon who wrote the original scripts just over a year ago. “When I originally wrote the scripts I hadn’t really thought through what my plan was to do with them. But then the idea began to develop of bringing the scripts to TY students and allowing them to tell me how they should sound sound and what should happen.
No-one knows how teenagers speak and think better than teenagers themselves and the process of developing the scripts over 6 weeks of workshops has been invaluable to the entire project. The students in the 4 schools were fantastic and really got into the whole project.”
The six weeks of workshops were coordinated by well-known Waterford writer and director Liam Meagher, who also directed the plays.
The story of Youthquake follows the lives of 5 teenagers; Anna who has run away with her boyfriend, Alan, to spend the night together. Will she be able to patch things up with her mother and will she regret her actions; Alan, a 16 year old boy who is struggling with the recent separation of his parents and the fact that the whole school is talking about him running away with his girlfriend; Jane, Anna’s best friend, who is the biggest Ariana Grande fan in the school. When she misses out on tickets to her concert and her arch enemy Sally Smith gets them, things get messy; Sally, who has a weekly vlog about everyday issues. She is desperate for fame, but when Luke Callahan, the most popular guy in school, contacts her online asking her for nudes she takes matters into her own hands; and Luke, who has a less than ideal home life. How will he deal with the guilt of what he has done to Sally and will the school find out it was him? The 5 lives of these five friends and not friends overlap and intertwine and they all end up in the skate park on a Friday afternoon with a dramatic fatal climax.
To allow as many of the students as possible be involved with the recording process the characters are played by different actors in each play, while some opted to get involved in the marketing side, promoting the plays on social media amongst their peers.
The plays will be broadcast every Tuesday in April on the On The Fringe arts programme just after the Waterford at 6 news on WLR. Also each episode will be podcast directly after broadcast, allowing listeners to catch up on previous episodes if they miss them. But the advice is DON'T MISS IT!
Listen back to the episodes, here..
Episode 1: Anna
Anna Ryan is a 16 year old girl from Waterford who likes average stuff, like boys & make-up, hurling & music. She is addicted to her phone, hates school and wants out of this place some day, average girl, average stuff.
But what happens to her and her friends is not average and will probably change them forever.
When we meet Anna in episode one of Youthquake she is struggling to connect with her mother who, Anna feels, is trying to live her life through her teenage daughter.
When Anna discovers a secret about her mothers past she feels it is time to break out and make her own path.
But will she regret the decision that herself and her boyfriend Alan make? And will it change the course of their lives?
Episode 2: Alan
After they ran away to spend the night together, and got caught by the gardai, Anna and Alan struggle to make their relationship work.
In episode 2 we focus on Alan, who is finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the fall out from running away with his girlfriend, while also dealing with his parents recent divorce.
He meets his father for chips on the prom in Tramore every week, where they try and connect surrounded by seagulls and garlic dip. Home life, with his mother and his younger brother is just as difficult and things reach breaking point.
When a rumour starts about him and Anna and a secret that they share, the pressure gets too much.
Episode 3: Jane
Jane is Anna’s best friend who just cant keep a secret, after all it was her that ended up telling the Gardaí where Anna and Alan had run away to.
In episode 3 we get to know Jane, her big mouth and her big personality. She loves to talk and is not the best listener but her and Anna are best friends and they tell each other everything.
Jane is also the biggest Ariana Grande fan in the school. When she fails to get tickets to see her idol in concert and her arch enemy, Sally Smith, gets back stage passes, things come to a head, landing Jane in a whole heap of trouble.
Episode 4: Sally
Sally is the school's resident vlogger, who shares videos online of herself talking about average stuff, like tanning and music. After Jane punched her in the face for getting Ariana Grande tickets, the 2 manage to patch up their differences and they start to reconnect.
When Sally is contacted by the most popular guy in school, Luke Callahan, looking for nudes she doesn’t know who to turn to, and ends up confiding in her old friend Jane.
Can she use the power of her Vlog to take back the power and will she end up sharing a secret that could change her life?
Episode 5: Luke (The Finale)
Luke struggles with the fact that everyone in school hates him right now, without anyone knowing its him they hate. He doesn’t know what to do, so he does nothing. But when others start to get blamed for what he has done he knows he has to step up and stop something bad happening, but is it too late?
The finale of this 5 part story culminates in the Skate Park on a Friday afternoon. We know someone is going to die, but who will it be? And who is to blame?
Don’t miss this enthralling finale to Youthquake as friendships are tested and lives are changed forever.
