About 5,000 teenagers are getting the chance to watch a play in the Abbey Theatre and gain new insights into drama, under a new education initiative, writes Belinda McKeon.

It's the final moment in the final scene of Tom Murphy's new version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and in the auditorium of the Abbey theatre, a captivated hush has descended; Firs, the elderly manservant has discovered that he is locked in the vast, cold house for the winter. Playing Firs, Tom Hickey has his audience's full attention. Which is an achievement not to be sniffed at; it has been a long trip through a difficult play, and the audience comprises mainly teenage schoolgirls on a mission to enjoy an evening free from the demands of homework. But, right now, it seems Firs is speaking directly to them.

"Yes, young people," he sighs, lowering himself to the cold floor. "You know, life goes by somehow - as though you never really live it . . ." It's a lonely denouement, but the sustained cheers which greet the curtain call show that the young audience is confident that this evening, at least, has been lived to the full.

Fifth-year students from three schools - Mercy Secondary School, Waterford, St Mary's Secondary School, Glasnevin, and Our Lady's Bower, Athlone - they're the first beneficiaries of Act Up, a new sponsorship programme funded by the National Lottery and facilitated by the Abbey's Outreach and Education Department. Throughout 2004, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, students from secondary schools around the country will attend an Abbey performance, as well as a pre-performance talk. The cost of all travel, seating and refreshments will be covered by the National Lottery. Its director Ray Bates won't talk figures, but with 5,200 students scheduled to take part in the initiative, and plush library packs going out to every school in the country, this is hardly a token gesture. Rather, says Bates, it's a neighbourly one.

"With the Abbey in the same street as us, and the centenary this year, it seemed an opportunity to do something," he says.

Jean O'Dwyer, director of Outreach and Education at the Abbey, appreciates the support. Where it's most valuable to her department, she says, is in highlighting the often-invisible but integral work that it does behind the scenes.

"People can come in at any stage and buy a ticket for the theatre," she says, "but if they come through us, their experience is layered, it's textured. In some way, they get more, they engage further or deeper into the whole experience of seeing a play. They get an insight, a way in, into what's happening onstage." The Outreach programme for the centenary year is called Common Bonds, and it includes workshops and masterclasses for adults and children, a youth theatre initiative, a libraries programme, a summer school, as well as the ongoing backstage tours, clubs, and signed language interpreted performances. For the Act Up initiative, the audience hear a pre-performance talk which puts each play in context, and fleshes out the many elements, seen and unseen, which make up a production. "You bring your eyes and ears to the theatre, it's not just like reading from a page," Martin Drury tells the audience during tonight's talk.

Drury, who has been artistic director of TEAM, the educational theatre company and a founder-director of The Ark, as well as directing for Second Age, which stages productions of plays on school courses, is an ideal choice to introduce The Cherry Orchard to an audience of 16- year-olds. He tells them about the process of auditioning, of rehearsing, of getting into a character; of directing and producing and building a set from scratch. He provides them with visual signposts to guide them into the strange world of 19th-century Russia - indeed, into the world of theatre which, as a show of hands proves, is a new experience for some members of the audience.

"There are hundreds, thousands of plays out there,' Drury tells his young charges. "You won't like all of them. And this one can be slow at times; you will have to concentrate harder than with other plays. But give it a chance."

After his talk, as the students get stuck into their meal at the offices of the National Lottery, it's clear that Drury has earned himself a place as teacher's pet. Teachers from all three schools approach him to express their thanks. From Glasnevin, they praise the careful tracing of the themes of the play, "of memory, loss, longing", which will ensure that each student, whether honours or pass, can relate to it.

The teachers from Athlone, meanwhile, are sure that Drury's talk, which has touched on the areas of design, lighting, direction and production, will encourage students to build further on their existing experiences of creating drama in school. And, like the other teachers, those from Waterford feel that the chance to see a play as a living, breathing production, rather than as words on a page, will be of invaluable help in the exam hall and beyond.

Back at the Abbey, during the performance, the young audience's attention levels palpably peak at times, fall at others. But the play holds them - and it needs them. A quick calculation suggests that if these students weren't here tonight, the Abbey auditorium would be much emptier. In fact, more than half-empty. And this is only the sixth night of the play's run.

Afterwards in the foyer, there are enthusiastic responses from the students in the foyer. Two Waterford students praise the costumes and the set design, The Glasnevin and Athlone students are surprised by how the language, while presenting another era, can be "so down-to-earth, so real". One student, whose family is Ukrainian, understood even the Russian mutterings of Firs, she says, and feels that they fitted perfectly with the English dialogue. Fans for life, then, for Tom Murphy.

This younger audience, so rarely seen, at least en masse, in an Irish theatre, brings with it new perspectives, fresh responses. It's interesting to see where their sympathies lie - rather than resenting the businessman Lopakhin for his purchase of the Cherry Orchard, they're glad to see it happen.

"Live for the day, never be afraid to do things," is how one Athlone student sees the play's meaning for young people. And, say the Glasnevin girls, it's Tom Hickey's type of mix - of comedy and tragedy, of the hilarious and the heartbreaking, which is the key to getting more young people into theatre auditoriums. That, and a cannier flow of information.

"We do want to go to the theatre, but we don't know that these things are on. They should tell us. Put up posters in the schools, come in and tell us, have more nights like this, for everyone. Because I would definitely go again," concludes one Glasnevin student.