Paper Balloon exists to create great storytelling theatre for, with and by young people.

FOR:  We make accessible, challenging, innovative new work for young audiences and their families.

WITH:  We run an exciting, immersive, literacy-based creative learning programme.

BY:  Our innovative Story Stew programme helps young writers become creators of our theatre.

Mission Statement

Paper Balloon aim:

• to create high quality, accessible theatre experiences for young audiences that inspire and empower young people through story.
• To develop original work from new and revised texts that challenge young audiences and fire their imaginations.
• To place young people at the centre of our ethos, approached through a combination of live performance and creative Learning.

To achieve this, Paper Balloon make high-quality, accessible theatre, live performance and educational works for young people and their families.  Our work fuses together original live music and song, puppetry, physical theatre, movement, spoken word and poetry.

At the heart of our work is the belief in the power of story to inspire. We believe that great theatre starts with great stories, and place storytelling at the centre of all that we do.

As well as developing original work through devising and new writing, Paper Balloon works with young people in schools and extra-curricular environments to develop their own self-expression, whilst encouraging a love for storytelling and literacy.

Paper Balloon is a child-focused organisation.  Our work is supported by contemporary research into young people’s development and the combined expertise of our members’ work with young people in the arts and education sectors.

Paper Balloon are Supported Artists in residence at Pegasus Theatre, Oxford.