Can you imagine what it’s like having no safe place to go? That sanctuary of a space within walls you can call your own, that you can return to every day with a sure sense of belonging. Every human needs a home. It’s so fundamental – to physical and mental health, wellbeing, the capacity to participate in society as a worker, lover, family member, friend.

The cast of Follow Me Home. Photograph © Tracey Schramm

Can you imagine that stability gone when you’re only just starting out in life?

In Lewis Treston’s compassionate Follow Me Home, the stories of young homeless people are brought from the margins to centre stage. The Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) worked with the Advocate for Children and Young People (ACYP) to create the work, first staged in 2017, and is inspired by real experiences shared.

A play aligned to a NSW government agency’s goals and influenced by research reports may have produced something pedantic or dull. Fortunately, Treston’s script is neither. A dozen or so vignettes carefully unspool and demythologise the diverse and complex realities of youth homelessness, performed on the Griffin Theatre Company’s small home stage at the...