KEEPING IT FRESH: The cast improvise a fun run

The cast have worked really hard within such a short space of time and I’m really proud and impressed at what they have accomplished so far! Very well done to all involved!

To breath some life back into the performance after repetitive rehearsals I asked them to do a “fun run”.

The rules are that they can completely change their character and therefore the interpretation by altering their use of voice, movement and body language. They must also attempt to stay focused at all times, which is difficult when the person you are playing opposite is acting out of character!

The fun run took place during one of our half term rehearsals. The following videos show how hard the cast have worked. To be able to improvise new characters, to play and have fun with the script, shows how well they understand the story and the script. It hilarious! Enjoy…

Part one:

Part two:

We value the arts!

Ensemble workshop: Exploring set possibilities

After warming up, we set to work exploring the themes:

• Love and Hate
• Peace and War

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After looking at a range of images detailing the types of alters you find in Catholic Churches, we created a range of still images. After analysing them all, we decided this one was the most successful.

We shall use this as the set for:

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We then worked on how we thought the Capulet Monument might look:

Cast workshop with the National Youth Theatre

On Tuesday 14th September cast members were allowed out of afternoon classes to do a workshop with the National Youth Theatre at the Carriageworks Theatre:

Workshop written up by Isabelle Poveda [ Tybalt ]

We arrived at the carriage works in true style, on a big yellow bus to be exact!

Our workshop began with our first sight of the stage we will be performing on. We got to know the stage by doing some space usage activities including walking round the stage performing commands on demand such as ‘jump’, ‘stop’, ‘go’ and ‘clap’ which is easy enough but when the commands and actions are swapped round it can get confusing. For example, when ‘go’ meant ‘stop’ there were usually a few people waving their arms around wildly as they tried to regain balance after wrongly launching forwards. And when ‘clap’ meant ‘jump’ there was always one person who sounded an embarrassingly loud clap as everyone else jumped.

For some of our activities we had to pair up with some one from the other school which was interesting and everyone got on well, some more than others as it was revealed that Steven [Romeo] had an admirer!

Next, an Eastenders version of ‘oy, av it, no’ where if you were to shout “you’re not my mother!” the choral reply would be “Yes I am!” and everyone would run around frantically to switch places.

Then it was time for Steven and Bella to take to the stage as Romeo and Juliet for the kiss scene! Their excellent performance put the other school to shame and the convincing chemistry between the two must have broken Steven’s admirer’s heart!

After a short break during which a tramp gave Bella six pence, we did a voice activity altering pitch, pace and volume where we witnessed Abbey’s super fast, very high version of “He’s dead!” which was quite entertaining.

Then we said our goodbyes and off we went back to our not so stylish big yellow bus, and returned to school more confident, six pence richer and Steven’s ego slightly larger.

In all- a successful trip!