Youth Music Theatre UK

Welcome to Serene (the town with the machine) is the story of a small coastal town facing extinction. When outsider Pia’s car breaks down near the town, she is introduced to the weird world of Serene and its zany inhabitants. Due to rising tides, the town has begun to expect a daily avalanche of sand to bury everything at ground level, which is why the residents who still live there have built themselves ‘Sandcastles’ (houses on stilts). Sadly, this doesn’t completely solve their problem, and so they have invested the last of their savings in building and maintaining ‘The Machine’. The Machine is the town’s answer to the threat of extinction; its job is (supposed to be) sucking in sand from the beach, and spitting it back into the ocean, out of the way of the houses.

As the tides rise and the sand piles high; Serene may be on the verge of the greatest catastrophe it has ever faced. Will The Machine be ready?

Serene is loosely based on a real seaside town on the outer banks of North Carolina. The inspiration for The Machine was taken from a real programme the wealthy residents have put together to stop sand burying their gardens.

Taking inspiration from Epic Theatre, as well as the aesthetics of Dr Seuss and Tim Burton, Welcome to Serene is a show about real life issues, explored via the surreal and the absurd. Dealing with themes of climate change, capitalism and social contracts, the show holds up a mirror to the strangeness of our society’s response to existential threat, through the medium of folk music, song and storytelling.

Creative Team

NMTA winners Bethany Tennick (Composer), Iona Ramsay (Writer).