They are taking part in the National Association of Youth Theatres' Big Youth Theatre Festival, four days of workshops run by such diverse groups as Pilot Theatre Company, Box Clever, Frantic Assembly and many more.

Some of the workshops they will be able to take part in include circus skills, stage fighting, devising, mask making, audition technique, puppetry, comedy improvisation and forum theatre. Every night there will be open mic sessions for budding singers, musicians and stand-up comedians.

In addition there will be opportunities to see performances from the youth theatres who are attending the festival. Calderdale Theatre School students will be taking a production of a short comedy/fantasy Nightmare on Gibbet Street, a 35-minute piece which they performed as part of the July Project at Square Chapel, Halifax, last Saturday.

Set in Halifax, it tells the story of government plans to sell a town to raise cash. They decide on one that they think no one will miss – Halifax. But they reckon without the people of Halifax who rise up as the Halifax Liberation Army to thwart the dastardly plans!

The youngsters will be sharing their accommodation at the festival with a group from America, EIL. This is now the fifth year that the two groups have shared accommodation and catering – forging many transatlantic friendships.

Four adults will be travelling and looking after the 27 young people; two theatre school tutors and two committee members. Gillie Kerrod and Louise Clark, the two staff members undertaking the trip, said it was "an exhilarating, if somewhat exhausting four days but well worth the lack of sleep".