Enabling greater opportunity for diverse talent

The Client

The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain are a world-leading youth arts charity dedicated to nurturing and showcasing talent of exceptional performers and theatre technicians in the UK. Each year they take on auditionees who, upon completion of their course, can sign-up as full members. Notable alumni include: Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Derek Jacobi, Ben Kingsley, Rosamund Pike, and Helen Mirren.

The Brief

To transform the National Youth Theatre site so that it supported an extensive array of functionalities, including course sign ups, audition processing and memberships. To reimagine its design to excite and engage its varied audiences, especially its younger members.

The Solution

The National Youth Theatre website had a set of complex functionalities that had to work seamlessly together. To make this a reality, we took a strategic approach to the unique set of problems the site created.

Back Office Infrastructure

The NYT site acts as a toolkit to people with varying roles across their organisation.

The financial team now have the ability to run reports on billing
Course leaders can review which members have signed up to courses and view key profile information
Auditionees can review past audition notes for specific members
The charity team can collect donations
Directors can profile members by key criteria and assign them to groups for casting new productions.

The diversity and breadth of the site’s back office has saved NYT significant money. They now have a multi-functioning CRM tool built into their website, instead of a standalone system.

Members area

The members area had to have multiple functions. Members can now log into their account to update personal details as well as see productions and apply for them. This functionality was key to provide a useful and relevant experience for its users. Thanks to the members area, users are able to have a more seamless and enjoyable experience with NYT.

User-centric design

All of this functionality adds up to one key function; a better user experience for NYT members. This was achieved not only through a technically- accomplished build but also through beautiful web design. The design of the site needed to make the site as easy to navigate and find the suitable product for you as possible whilst simultaneously introducing the mission and identity of the National Youth Theatre as an organisation.

NYT’s customer base consists of an existing membership, aspiring membership, alumni membership, and non-members who are interested in either auditioning, donating, signing up to a masters course or finding the latest news and opportunities.
We prioritised each audience’s task on the site against the organisations objectives to form a framework we could make decisions against during the design and development phase.