Drama students thoroughly enjoy technical workshop at the Criterion Theatre

 Each year thousands of young people from primary, secondary and SEND schools across the country unite in the world’s largest youth Shakespeare festival. The programme was originally developed in 2000 from the BBC’s much-loved classroom resource, Shakespeare: The Animated Tales. The comprehensive Festival process culminates in exhilarating performance evenings, with young people aged 8-18 playing Shakespeare in professional theatres, raising aspirations and unlocking the potential of students and teachers alike.

Last Friday, as part of this initiative, a group of our Drama students took part in a free technical skills workshop at the Criterion Theatre, London. Students got to work together as production teams and took part in four different workshops to create their own lighting, stage, sound and props formats for a short Shakespearian scene. These workshops provided the perfect window into the wider world of theatre, that is, rather than focusing purely on the actors themselves, it lifted the lid on the multitude of roles that producing a play entails.

Students learnt all about the common production roles including: the Producer, who oversees the shows finances and logistics, the Director, who leads the creative vision, the Stage Manager, who runs the day-to-day operations and co-ordinates departments, and various Designers (Set, Lighting, Sound, Costume) who conceptualise and create the show’s visual and auditory elements. Other roles also include Technical Director, Production Manager, Props Master and Run Crew. What it taught them was this – you don’t have to be an actor to work in a theatre production!

Given a Shakespearean scene to work on, our boys had a fantastic time experimenting with the various roles and were tasked to focus on characterisation throughout. Scenes were given meaning and adapted and amended as the students required.  e.g. character relationships/dynamics. 

Suffice to say, the boys were able to inject their own personality and creativity into the tasks and thus created some amazing scenes. Watching our boys on the theatre stage whilst their peers were controlling everything in the sound/lighting desk was incredible! It was great to hear such positive feedback on the conduct of our boys, too: they did our school proud!

We are excited to announce that we will be participating in the Shakespeare School Festival again this year. A letter will be sent out soon for students to sign up and take part in this wonderful opportunity. This year, students will have the chance to perform at the Rose Theatre and collaborate on creating their own Shakespearian play, just as they did last year with our version of Othello.