ENJOY some half term fun with Colchester’s newest theatre company.

TWAS Theatre was set up exactly a year ago by Matt Jewson and Jenna Saiz to create work to be performed by young people in and out of schools.

Now in their mid-20s both started their acting careers in their hometown performing and putting on shows with the likes of the Mad Hatter ensemble, the Colchester Operatic Society’s junior edition CO2 and at their own school, Philip Morant.

Matt says: “I joined Phoenix Arts, which later turned into Mad Hatter, back in 2009 but at school I was actually really into sport instead, especially rugby and football.

“It was when I took GCSE drama and did a play called the Ruffian on the Stair by Joe Orton that I fell in love with acting.”

Productions came thick and fast for Matt following that including Romeo and Juliet at Philip Morant, Lord of the Flies with Mad Hatter and the Wiz with CO2, to name just a few.

Jenna also starred in the Wiz, as Dorothy to Matt’s Tin Man but she had been performing a lot longer with CO2 than Matt.

“Oh, I started from a very early age,” she smiles. “I was 11 when I did my first show and then stayed with them right through my teens and beyond.”

After leaving Philip Morant’s Sixth Form both went to the Colchester Institute, Jenna to do a musical theatre degree, and Matt to do creative performance in acting degree before they finally went their separate ways.

While Matt continued with his love of acting at the East 15 School in London, Jenna went to the Guildford School of Acting where she studied musical theatre.

It was a while before they returned to Colchester with Matt involved in tours around the country performing Shakespeare and Jenna going one further working with a theatre company taking English plays into foreign schools.

It was this background, as well as Matt’s new job working with Colchester Stagecoach, that led to their decision to set up TWAS.

Matt says: “We’ve always loved Colchester and it has given us so much in starting off both our careers so we thought why not give something back.”

“We’ve started doing holiday drama workshops,” Jenna adds, “but we’re also working on a number of exciting projects which we plan to bring into schools next year.”

• TWAS’s half term drama workshop putting on an original production of the Jungle Book runs at the Kingsland Church, Lexden Road, Colchester, all next week.

For more detail e-mail bookings@twastheatre.co.uk or call 07594 258027.