Vancouver East Cultural Centre's Cultch festival is, for the first time ever, holding a mini-theatre festival for young audiences along with its mainstage dance performances.

The Canadian Institute of the Arts for Young Audience is presenting X-Site - Theatre Festival for Young Adults. Three shows are featured, including Autopsy, a 70 minute multi-media musical developed entirely from interviews with young people. The script involves an internet romance with a Romeo and Juliet twist and is part docu-drama and part rock concert.

The Story of the Fallen Hero is an hour-long show that captured the prestigious "Fringe First" Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1997, while the third show Moonlodge is a stirring monologue of a young Native woman who, taken away from her family by Children's Aid, eventually returns to find her roots as an adult.

Autopsy, May 26, 29 and 31; The Story of the Fallen Hero , May 27, 28, 30; Moonlodge, May 28, 29, 30, 31.

For tickets call: 604-251-1363. By Mira Friedlander
Canada Correspondent