OWEN Calvert-Lyons, York Theatre Royal’s director of youth theatre, is to leave his post at the end of January to move to the Arcola Theatre in London.

“I’ll be helping them to build a new youth theatre, which we hope will eventually become as large and successful as the one at the Theatre Royal,” says Owen, who joined the York company in the summer of 2006.

In his new job in Dalston, in the east London borough of Hackney, he will be involved in the arts wing of the 2012 Olympic Games celebrations too.

“Hackney has been chosen as the lead borough for the cultural Olympiad, so Arcola will be part of a joint scheme to develop youth and community-based arts projects for it,” Owen says.

“I’m not sure of exactly what that will entail just yet, but we’re looking at using my experience of producing sight-specific theatre for Illuminating York to produce large scale, sight-specific community performances.”

Owen, 27, is a trustee of the National Association of Youth Theatres and in his career as a theatre director and workshop practitioner he has specialised in creating theatre with young people.

During his Theatre Royal tenure, he has directed The Children, The UN Inspector, Send In the Clowns, Keys To The Kingdom and 1984.

Last October, Owen and the Theatre Royal’s education associate, Julian Ollive, created a typically ambitious youth theatre piece for Illuminating York, the festival with a mission to make you see the city in a different light.

Owen and Julian’s cast of 30 actors transformed the concrete contours of Piccadilly Car Park – usually dormant at night – into a torch-lit theatre space for Secret Solstice, an exploration of the origins of the sun, as revealed through ten solar legends adapted by playwright Richard Hurford.

Now Owen will be lighting up Arcola with his bright imagination. Bon voyage.