About MTCT

Established in 2013, MTCT is a cluster of eleven schools and two community groups in
Mitcham Town. Our mission is to support all young people and families we work with in
Mitcham Town to reach their full potential. We aim to create ongoing learning opportunities
for the whole community through collaboration, creativity and innovation.

About Green Arts Centre

Launched in 2021, Green Arts Centre offers quality arts activity, “on your doorstep”.
Our mission is to create new opportunities for all young people in Mitcham to enjoy and
participate in high quality arts work. Our theatre and dance programmes are FREE and open
to every young person aged 8-12 years. We aim to expand the programme upwards to age
16 within the next two years.

“Creativity is at the heart of our school’s approach, and we are very excited about the fantastic new opportunities Green Arts Centre will give young people from our school and across Mitcham to discover and explore the arts.”

- Celia Dawson OBE, Headteacher, Cricket Green School

Managed by Andy Alty who has over thirty years of experience in delivering youth arts
programmes.

In the last two years, we have:

Created a flexible 120 seat performance space
Engaged 1300 young people
Worked with 22 local schools
Welcomed 740 young people to GAC
Brought in 25 local young people aged 8-12 to our weekly Youth Theatre
Staged a large-scale community event attended by over 250 children andadults

In 2023 we plan to:

Maintain weekly Youth Theatre sessions with a large scale performance in Summer term.
Begin a weekly dance club for young people aged 8 -12 in January 2023
Run Autumn and Easter theatre and dance clubs and a multidisciplinary arts club during the summer holiday
Create a cross-arts project in summer term for local primary schools culminating in an event staged at GAC, Canon's House & Grounds and other venues

Meet the Team

Creative Director

Andrew Alty

Andy was Creative Learning Manager at New Wimbledon Theatre for seven years. He established WCTT as an independent charity in 2017 and was their Creative Producer from 2017-2021. He now runs the Green Arts Centre, a new youth arts space in Mitcham. He also works as a playwright and has written shows for Polka Theatre, the Royal Court, Soho Theatre and Birmingham Repertory as well as for TV and radio.

MTCT Development & Project Manager

Kristina Burton

Kristina is MTCT's Development and Project Manager and has been supporting Mitcham schools for the past 11 years. She oversees a portfolio of community projects including the RFL Project, Green Arts Centre, Shine Saturday School and the Sanctuary Art and Play Therapy Centre.

Kristina: I'm passionate about staff recruitment, retention and inclusive talent management. I used to work in the Arts sector and have seen first hand how performing arts can transform lives and inspire learning.

Dance Club Leader

Sarah Ramirez

Sara's early training was at Christine Kearsly’s School of Dance. She then took classes at the English National Ballet school and trained at NATD and Royal Academy of Dance. She went on to become a NATD Teacher, Zumba instructor, Sherborne (movement therapy) teacher and a teacher of gymnastics in primary schools. Sara currently teaches dance and Sherborne to young people with learning difficulties at Cricket Green school, a role she finds enormously rewarding. She also teaches adults and children at 2 dance schools. Sara is also a choreographer, working on shows such as CATS and the Hunchback Notre Dame for Centre Stage London.

Youth Theatre Director

Ed Hill

Ed is a theatre director with an interest in education and sport. Since training as an actor, he has worked with all kinds of groups, from professional actors to circus performers, from brilliantly creative 6 year olds to those with all the experience of 60 years plus. For Ed, no idea is discarded out of hand - hearing each of the unique voices in the room only makes the work better. He likes the fact that theatre can be an open forum for discussion & learning and believes that it can present not only complaints about the world around us but also possible solutions to the problems of our time. He loves a drama game so don't play him at "Zip Zap Boing" because he's unbeatable.