A TALENTED teenager from a York secondary school has been hand-picked to take part in the RSC's first young acting company.

Mohamed Danina, 14, has been chosen to become part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) first ever young acting company – RSC Next Generation ACT.

The Fulford School Year 10 student will join 19 other young people who all demonstrated exceptional talent, focus, commitment and passion, when they took part in a series of masterclasses that took place across the country earlier this year.

The masterclasses involved 180 students from the RSC’s Associate Schools Programme, and were held in Cornwall, London, Kent, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, York, Hull, Bradford, Blackpool and Stoke.

The 20 members of RSC Next Generation ACT are all aged between 12 and 16 years old, and were selected by a panel of RSC actors and representatives from the RSC’s Casting and Education departments.

Mohamed's teacher Amy Greene said: “Mohamed has demonstrated great aptitude and commitment in drama, which we saw when he played the role of Ferdinand at the RSC Associate Schools festival at the Theatre Royal last year. He works hard and is a great collaborator and we are so proud that he has been chosen to be a part of this incredibly prestigious theatre company. It is a great recognition of both his work and the work of the drama department at Fulford School; we wish him every success and look forward to seeing the performances in 2018. We are all very proud of him and we know that he will make a great success of this opportunity.”

Mohamed will join the rest of the RSC Next Generation ACT company members later this week when the group will come together for the first time in Stratford-upon-Avon on September 14-16.

Robin Belfield from the RSC’s Education department, said:

“The RSC has trained generations of the very best actors, directors and practitioners, but for a long time we’ve been aware that, for a variety of reasons, some young people really struggle to break into the theatre industry. Our Associate Schools programme works in partnership with schools and theatres nationwide, often in areas of significant disadvantage. Those schools work with us for a minimum of two years so we get to know the students really well, and have a clear sense of who has the talent, focus and passion to benefit most from a programme like RSC Next Generation ACT.

"We are thrilled that we can now offer a potentially life-changing opportunity to some of these young people."

RSC Next Generation ACT is one strand of RSC Next Generation, a unique talent development programme that gives gifted young people, who might ordinarily find it hard to break into a career in theatre, the opportunity to gain experience in acting, directing or backstage, and explore whether a career in the theatre is for them.