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SUMMER TERM
PRACTICAL WORK
The end of last term saw outstanding performance work from our exam candidates.
Year 12, inspired by the Theatre Practitioner Shared Experience - staged bold, highly physicalised and impressive extracts from Polly Teale's Bronte and Diane Samuels' moving and layered Kindertransport. All girls were commended for excellent performance work with Holly Plumeridge earning full marks for demonstration of her acting skill and Alice Strong full marks for her accomplished Lighting Design.
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The end of term saw outstanding devised work from Year 13 with all girls earning A and A* grades for presentation of their two Creative Adaptations. The Girls of Slender Means based on Muriel Spark's novel evoked the 1940s with charm, originality and flair using absorbing ensemble playing create a highly effective collage. The piece was stylish and varied and made us laugh and cry. The adaptation of Henry James' Turn of the Screw was chilling and unsettling. The ensemble realised the corridors and mysteries of Bly using sophisticated physical theatre techniques to create a volatile and unpredictable atmosphere. 8 girls were awarded full marks for performance; Katie Barrie, Helena Clark, Leonie Gasson, Athena Gupta, Rosie Joly, Maisie Richardson Sellers and Lucy Schofield with Ellie Wade earning full marks for her witty, incisive and fluid direction.
THEATRE TRIPS
Year 12 pupils travelled to the Riverside Studios last week to see Theatre Lab's version of Antigone. Though flawed in its overall production concept, it gave the girls a valuable opportunity to see a Live Theatre version of the text they are studying for their AS course.
On Wednesday 28th April Year 12 and Year 11 pupils will be seeing Northern Stages acclaimed touring production of Joan Littlewood's iconic play Oh What A Lovely War!
AUDITIONS
Auditions take place this week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after school for the forthcoming production of ANCIENT MARINER for pupils in Year 7, 8 and 9. This is a new adaptation of Coleridge's famous ballad by Kathryn Norton with original music and lyrics by Ned Bennett.
Please see Gallery for more photos
SPRING TERM
Year 11
Just before half term Year 11 GCSE pupils took part in their final Practical Assessment for their Coursework. Every single girl was awarded an A or A* by the external moderator for demonstration of skill: 31 actors, 2 Lighting Designers, 1 Sound Designer & 1 Costume Designer. A true reflection of an outstanding year group who staged extracts from Wertenbaker's 'The Ashgirl', Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Euripedes' 'The Bacchae', with flair, inventiveness and rigorous attention to detail. Additionally their response throughout the process to the ensemble ethic, working generously in rehearsal with peers and staff alike ensured all girls scooped top band marks for their process too. Parents, friends and fellow pupils relished the showcase presentation on Wednesday 10th February; great preparation for the exam 2 days later. Please click here for more photos.
Last week Theatre Studies pupils visited the Sackler centre at the V&A to watch archive recordings of Shared Experience productions as part of their preparations for their forthcoming practical exam.
Year 7
7H earned a credit for their quirky physical theatre adaptation of a Mission Impossible. Tom Cruise eat your heart out.
YEAR 11
GCSE groups are currently rehearsing for their forthcoming practical presentations. Three groups will present extracts from Euripedes' The Bacchae, Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and Wertenbaker's Ashgirl.
YEAR 12
Two AS groups have begun preparations for their Practical presentations of extracts from two plays; Polly Teale's Bronte and Diane Samuel's Kindertransport. They have been influenced by the performance style of Shared Experience Theatre Company.
YEAR 13
Two A2 groups have begun to develop their own devised work fuelled by two novels, Henry James' Turn of the Screw and Muriel Spark's Girls of Slender Means. They are exploring the theatrical approach of creative adaptation influenced by Kneehigh Theatre Company's adaptation of Brief Encounter.
AUTUMN TERM
9 - 12 DECEMBER 2009
Much Ado About Nothing
Several girls were involved in the recent Dulwich College production of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado about Nothing'. The ensemble treatment set in the 1920s featured glamorous young things, hilarious clowns and serious men of state, but also captured the dark heart of the text with its threatening atmosphere of humiliation, murder and revenge. A review will shortly be published in 'The Alleynian', commending outstanding performances from Rosie Joly as Beatrice and Athena Gupta as Hero.
(photo by Maggie Jarman)
2 - 4 DECEMBER 2009
The Trial
The Senior production was staged to great acclaim by an ensemble of forty girls who created a highly charged and visually stunning version of Berkoff's adaptation of 'The Trial'. The ensemble inventively conjured the unsettling and nightmarish journey through the bizarre, macabre and absurdist world of Kafka's novel using highly physical and expressionistic performance techniques. There was an outstanding central performance by Katie Barrie as Joseph K .
(photo by Nobby Clark)
10 DECEMBER 2009
Year 10 - Play to Stage Performance: A Caucasian Chalk Circle
Year 10 staged extracts form Brecht's play A Caucasian Chalk Circle to an invited audience of parents and friends. For many this was their first performance in front of and audience and it was a great opportunity for them to demonstrate their burgeoning physical performance skills working within the intimacy of our new studio space. Their staging ideas were witty and refreshing and captured the flavour of Brechtian rough and immediate theatre.
26 NOVEMBER 2009
THEATRE TRIP : Caucasian Chalk Circle
All girls studying Drama and Theatre Arts at GCSE and 'A' level in Year 10, 11, 12 & 13 filled the Unicorn Theatre at London Bridge to see Shared Experience's terrific ensemble production of Caucasian Chalk Circle. The story about greed, corruption and ownership remains relevant and resonant today and Brecht's polemic was communicate with great sensitivity and ingenious integration of familiar expressionistic Shared Experience techniques of expressionism where the aim is to give form to the hidden world of emotion and imagination. This was a first experience for many Year 10 pupils and provided great inspiration for their forthcoming practical project.
NOVEMBER 2009
COMPLICITE WORKSHOP
Year 12 and Year 13 A levels pupils enjoyed a terrific afternoon with Mick Barnfather, an associate of Theatre de Complicite who honed physical theatre skills with the girls and introduced them to the challenges of devising and developing original material. The dominant characteristic of Complicite's work is fluidity and control of movement and never to be afraid of taking risks, and the girls certainly relished the opportunity of adding to their arsenal of performance techniques with which to fuel their forthcoming practical work.
10 NOVEMBER 2009
THEATRE TRIP : Endgame
Year 12 and 13 pupils saw Complictite's production of Beckett's Endgame with Mark Rylance anmd Simon Mc Burney as Hamm and Clov. Beckett's work really explores the landscape of the soul and Endgame is a vision of the bleakness of humanity in which Beckett grimly excludes all possibility of the positive. But woven into the fabric of the text is a gallows humour where we see that "nothing is funnier than unhappiness" . This was a richly rewarding production with a tour de force mercurial performance from Mark Rylance showing us a full gamut of emotions from thunderous explosions of range via theatrical raconteur to extraordinarily touching vulnerability as Hamm resigns himself to the inevitability of demise.
28 SEPTEMBER 2009
THEATRE TRIP : All's Well that Ends Well
Year 12 and 13 pupils saw Marianne Elliot's production of All's Well that Ends well at the National Theatre. Her very original treatment of Shakespeare's difficult comedy planted the piece firmly in a gothic fairy-tale world with inventive use of projections and a composite set contrasting the sombre mood of mourning at Rossilion with the glamour and grandeur of Paris and the playful hot summer nights with the soldiers off duty in Florence. The anachronistic costume design added to the timelessness theme's in the play of devotion, repentance and reconciliation with a strong central performance from Michelle Terry as Helena.
22 SEPTEMBER 2009
THEATRE TRIP : An Inspector Calls
Visits to Live Theatre productions are a major part of the A Level and GCSE Courses and pupils from Years 11, 12 and 13 enjoyed the revival of Stephen Daldry's ground-breaking and multi-award winning production of An Inspector Calls at the Novello Theatre. Daldry's production keeps the action in 1912 but surrounds his players with ghosts from the future in the form of the poor and dispossessed of 1940s post war Britain echoed in Ian MacNeil's dramatic highly stylised set design which starts with rain pouring onto the boards and ends with the family's ill-gotten gains - an reputation - literally cascading down on to their heads.
SEPTEMBER 2009
THEATRE TRIP : The Mysteries
The first theatre trip of the year was to South African company 'Isango Portobello's' treatment of the Chester Mystery Cycle at the Garrick Theatre. This was a joyous and memorable production where we saw God in her true colours as a black African woman. Episodes from the New and Old Testament were brought to life through the rhythm, ritual and celebration of African culture. Weaving together many languages including Afrikkaan, Zula, Xhosa as well as English to communicate the powerful message of the stories, the company sang multilayered vocal harmonies in vastly diverse musical styles from polyphonic ecclesiastical chants to the more familiar and secular 'You are my Sunshine' accompanied throughout with driving and dynamic percussive effects. A great way to start the year.
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