Young Company Sessions ↓ Leave a comment
Find out what is happening in the weekly young company sessions that involve over 400 young people each week
Find out what is happening in the weekly young company sessions that involve over 400 young people each week
Katie Smart says:
today in yr 8 we went in pairs, one person was the master, the other was a slave. The master made the slave say something, do something and write something and the slave could interprate their orders any way they wanted. Next, we went in to groups of three and did the same thing and a dierector took notes on the performance and produced a piece from their notes. I liked this session because it was fun telling people what to do and be able to see what i dierected be perfomed.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Tid (Young Company Director) says:
Welcome back to one and all, Check it!
This term we focus on directing, this is your time to be creative, to make the decisions and enjoy your work being perform by other members of your group.
You should all start thinking about what you want to put on the stage, how you can make something out of nothing and the impossible possible.
Also a big Welcome to all those new folk that have joined us. (yep Charlie, Jack, Eamon, Claire, you know)
This term there are many new things: this blog, new leaders, new sessions, and new productions, check out the info below.
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Writing for Theatre
Want to write for the stage, create scenes, monologues and plays? This is your opportunity to work with professional writers and theatre makers and bring your words, characters and dramatic events to life.
When: 6pm – 8pm Thursdays
Leaders: Ian Wainwright and Adam Peck
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Music for Theatre
Play and instrument? Sing? Or want to? Use these skills to bring theatre to life. This group will create song and music for theatrical performance, they will look at how they can use their voices to accompany and create the action on stage, how their instruments can paint pictures for performance and develop their skills of composition, creativity and chorus. You will work with professional composers and musicians creating exciting sound that leads to performance. Join this music filled session and let your voice and instruments do the performing.
When: 6pm – 8pm Wednesdays
Leader: Peter Reynolds
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New Show! Samson and Delilah 9th – 12th July
As you all know you don’t have to audition to be part of the old vic young company, you just need commitment and enthusiasm. So if you are Yr10 and above and you can commit to the rehearsal schedule below and would like to be part of the Samson and Delilah production, then let me know (Tid), either in a session or email education@bristol-old-vic.co.uk or call 0117 9072691.
Rehearsals
Tuesdays 6pm – 10pm & Fridays 6pm – 10pm term time
Half Term Tuesday 27th and Thursday 29th 10am – 4pm
Production week Mon 7th – Sat 12th July 4pm – 10pm
This will be a special production as it will be a collaboration between Emily Thompson, Daniel Prosser and myself. They will both be gaining valuable experience as co-directors on the show before they both leave us for university in the autumn.
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Directors, Leaders and Assistants for the Summer Term
Ian Wainwright. Director of Education
Tid. Young Company Director
Miranda Cromwell. Assistant Young Company Director
Rosie Giarratana. Session leader/assistant
Adam Peck. Writing for Theatre Leader
Peter Reynolds. Music for Theatre Leader
Emily Thompson. Session assistant
Daniel Prosser. Session assistant
Terry Tunstall. Session assistant
Anna Garvey. Session assistant
Anisa Mazidian. Session assistant
The Blog
In the near future this is where you will be able to find all Young Company info, from productions to workshops, pics and clips, dates for the new term and special events. It’s also the place where you can interact and keep a track of what’s happening in your sessions and beyond, remember there are now over 450 of you.
Check it!
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Danny Prosser (Sessional Assistant) says:
Session Blog
Group: Year 7 Group 2 Date:22/04/08
Session Goal: Direction
Leader: Emily Thompson Assistant: Danny Prosser
We began by bringing all the groups together onto the Main Stage, where Tid (Young Company Director) introduced the new term, asking how many people had attended the Open Day and the various productions from the last term and to tell them about the new productions for this term, such as Samson and Delilah and the restaging of A Vampire Story for the New Connections Festival at the Bath Theatre Royal and Narcissus and Echo for Big Youth Theatre Festival in Epping Forest. After this he asked the three groups to name what this term was about and finally Orla was able to tell us it was about Directing, and he ask of the company what they thought the role of a Director was.
Some of their answers were:
“A director directs!!”
“A director is the man who organises the actors!”
“A director sees over everything that happens!”
Tid was disappointed by the fact that the three different groups had sat in their respective age groups and didn’t use this introduction to the term to mix and meet other young company members that they won’t for a long time get to meet again. Next time Young People, use such an entertaining introduction to the term to meet the other allusive Young People!!
After they were brought together, the Young People were split into their groups for the rest of their session.
Games:
Sheriff – The company stands in a circle as cowboys of the Wild West, and the Sheriff stands in the centre with his guns. The cowboys wait until the Sheriff chooses his victim and shoots, this victim must duck to the floor and the cowboys on either side of him must shoot each other, the fastest draws wins. This continues until two cowboys are left and must have a shoot out, back to back.
The company use this game to warm up their bodies and focus their brains, its important for the Young People to play with vocal and physical clarity, as well as having fun.
Killer Tick- This is a game of Tag with a difference. When someone is on it, they must tag as many other people in the room as possible, but everyone has two defences from being tagged, one is to run away and the other is to call out someone’s name in the room. Once somebody else’s name has been called, they become it. Once someone is tagged everyone must freeze and hum, as the tagged dies in slow motion to the floor with a loud open mouth note. Everyone must actively freeze, if they move while someone is dieing they must die themselves.
The company use this game as a physical and vocal warm up, making their voices and bodies active for the session. It’s also a test of focus, memory and honesty.
Performance Exercises:
The winners of the games were awarded by being the directors of a group of performers. Four groups were asked to create a piece of theatre, of any kind, thinking about the many theatrical tools they have acquired, while the directors were asked to think about their role and how they should work together with the performers either collaboratively or didactic (what I say goes!!!). Before they got to work on create some theatre they were asked what theatrical tools they knew of and could use.
Some of their answers were:
-Voice
-Script
-Song
-Vocal rhythm
-Soundscapes
-Character
-Movement
-Physicality
-Bodies being objects
Performances:
After 20 minutes of creating the four groups were able to show the work they had created. Some directors chose to also be in the performance, where some chose to stay out of them.
-One group looked at telling a fairytale in 2 minutes, using a narrator, and the use of sticks which acted as props to create such images as flying on a broomstick, or climbing the stairs of a tower. Where the clarity of the narrative was great, sometimes they commitment to the performances wavered.
-One group took the risk by not using any speech and just used movement. I found this performance very interesting, but I did agree with the rest of the Young People that any narrative was unclear. The performers were asked to get up again and perform while one of the young people, Emily and myself fed them direction, looking at adding in speech to create a clear narrative and story.
We ended by asking the Young People what they had learnt in the session.
Some of their answers were:
“We learnt how to direct and organise a group of actors”
“We learnt different ways to direct”
“We learnt a new word….umm…..didactic?”
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Alice Ottley says:
Yesterday was great a cool start to the new term. Playin slaves and masters was really good and funny
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Tid (Young Company Director) says:
Narcissus and Echo Rehearsal Summer Term.
Yo all! this is the rehearsal schedule for Narcissus and Echo, so we can take it a few places and to the Big Youth Theatre Festival.
We have got to rehearse 2 new peeps to play the tailors, someone to play the doc, we need a new reflection and a musician.
Let me know you can make it, either in a session or email education@bristol-old-vic.co.uk or call 0117 9072691.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Tid (Young Company Director) says:
Narcissus and Echo Rehearsal Schedule.
May Sat 3rd 10am – 4pm
Sat 17th “
Sat 31st “
June Sat 14th “
Sat 28th “
July 14th 15th 16th 4pm – 10pm
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Rob Delaney says:
To all involved in the young company;
I’m a final year actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was fortunate enough to see your Narcissus and Echo performance last Sunday. I was blown away by so many things, too many in fact to generalise so here’s a list…..
*Each and every performer was incredibly committed all the way through the piece; the concentration was great to watch and this gave a sense or real support for one another.
*the energy created by this focus was fantastic and, consequently, the audience were riveted from start to finish.
*The use of almost every performance medium was stunning to watch; i don’t think i’ve ever seen a group of young performers stretch themselves like that in one show!
*OVERALL, it was a great team effort. The energy, focus and commitment to the piece was great.
Keep pushing yourselves!
Congradulations to all involved, i look forward to seeing more of your work soon.
Best, Rob Delaney
rob.delaney@hotmail.co.uk
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Nic Abrams says:
After a long holiday break the year 10-11 was welcomed back with open arms. the first event on show was tids ‘questionable’ dancing. Then as the other groups went off, our session leader, Miranda, set us off to play ‘killer tig’ and it was great to see that, even after a long holiday, we had not forgotten all of each others names. After this we proceeded to take part in an activity that required us to split into pairs. Once in pairs the master of the pair would give the slave something to do. Whether it was to lie on the floor or run in circles it didnt matter, the aim of the excercise was to get our imaginations working and our theatrical minds flowing. After swapping pairs a few times we joined with another pair to form a group. From these groups we devised pieces of our own creation with one person directing the piece. Once each group had made their piece they were shown and talked about. The pieces that came from our youthful creative minds ranged hugely, from a marriage proposal to an army of soldiars being created from paper. This activity worked extrememly well and everyone had a good laugh thanks to expert leadership of Miranda and her assistant Danny.
And that was that for another fun week at BOV.
P.S.
Welcome to the new guys Max and Robyn (sorry if i cant spell)
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
will nash says:
sounds good. wish i could have come but i had a GCSE dress.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
charlie haughton says:
had first session back today, was a goodun as usual.
started with some street dancing from tid and then a bit of a intro to the new term. directing it seems, should be good and challenging, look forward to it.
other new things like the writing and music course all sound really good, need to spread the word with people to get it rolling.
also various productions being performed in festivals and stuff, seems like the youth theatre is allowed to be ambitious now, absolutely wicked news and promises good things for the future.
the actual session started with one game of sherriff, and 2 games of killer tic (i won both times!) the winners of all games had to be directors for the session.
the peaces we directed were based around a particular moment, and the three moments chosen by groups were
clocks going back
recieving exam results
a break up.
all pieces were fairly abstract which made them interesting, as Tid says realism can be done better on TV.
i was one of the directors and enjoyed it, although its defonately a challenge. Hardest part is the fact that people are reliant on you, and obviously if its a crap performance then your guna feel bad. All the performances were really good though, and we were all given some good constructive criticism and ideas about how they could have been improved.
finsihed the session talking about the productions coming up, Samson and Delilah - a new production which will no doubt be amazing, and then the re-staging of Narcissus and Echo in the youth theatre festival. Apparntly a few parts up for grab in narcissus which im sure people will be eager to fill after seeing how good it was.
so ye, wicked first session thanks to tidbury, and emily was a flawless assistant though i doubt her blog on the session will be as good as this!
look forward to this term, it promises to be really exciting.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Anisa says:
THE FIRST MUSIC FOR THEATRE SESSION
..was incredible. After a magnificent performance of dancing from Tid and Miranda, and Tid delivering the beginning of term welcome, all five of us marched up to the Rehearsal Room (Becci Griggs, Theo Jamieson, Natasha Sutton-Williams, Peter Reynolds and I – all of whom are great reasons to JOIN MUSIC FOR THEATRE!).
Peter placed a wooden table in the middle of the room with four pieces of paper on it. We took initiative and sat around it.
So we discussed what this term could be. We could do abstract theatre things – picking notes and creating melodies etc.. We will do music for Samson and Delilah (an order box in the corner? They could drop notes in saying “a song about maps please” and we could make a song and send it back up to Coopers!) .. and we will play withhhh
……………..CABARET! :-O
Then Peter did away with any preconceptions we might have had of it being modern cabaret, we’ll be creating “darker cabaret…think Berlin, Paris in the 20s, not cliché cabaret, it has to be authentic it can’t be an imitation. Or it dies.”
So there can be glitz on the surface, but underneath there is another layer that says something about the place that bore the cabaret, maybe something more serious.
Peter will try to dig out some footage of old cabaret’s which we’ll watch.
Peter spoke about the cabaret companies who used to roll out new shows every two weeks, who just became cabaret factories. We’ll aim towards being one of them!! Having a venue where we perform our creations, always with some popular classics (The three headed woman act! And the donkey act!), but introducing new acts every few weeks. Peter told us about some of the cabaret acts around at the moment.
So the pieces of paper on the wooden table. “Write ten words describing cabaret”
So we wrote. Some of us wrote ten separate words, some wrote a few phrases that included ten words in total. We read them out and Peter picked out some of our words and told us to write a few sentences that we would make into a song.
Under Peter’s direction, and using our lyrics, we created three cabaret acts using one person’s lyrics and another person playing the piano and whatever props were around, the rest of us sat in the audience and sometimes went up to be involved in the act. Found a few funnnyy characters! And the acts were great, I definitely learnt a lot. A lot a lot a lot about comedy and appealing to the audience.
Peter said that we won’t do just comedy, we will do a few acts which will just be maybe a few singers doing a really good job of a song or something. Or a trio playing some tune that Peter mentioned which I wouldn’t be able to remember the name of or write down but was basically really famous and difficult sounding.
I laughed loads, so did others, and I think I would say it was a wonderful session enjoyed very much by all!! HIP HIP HOORAYYY
April 24th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Miranda (Assistant Youth Theatre Director) says:
Dance Theatre, Friday’s 6-8 p.m.
The dance theatre sessions at the Old Vic are a new and exiting route to creating theatre inspired by movement and dance. The sessions use music, are high energy and contain a variety of styles of dance from street and break dance to contemporary, contact work and gesture based movement. The focus of the work created is to use physicality to explore narrative and create non text based performance. The dance theatre sessions enable the young company to learn and employ various choreographic tools to help them devise and develop throughout the workshops, rehearsal and into performance.
The sessions are designed to explore movement and develop skills so no previous dance training is needed.
If you enjoy dance and want to be able to create devised theatre that uses music and choreography then the dance theatre programme will be perfect for you.
The Dance Theatre Programme is currently rehearsing Persephone to be performed on the 12th, 13th and 14th of June.
Persephone.
Snatched from this world and dragged to the next,
Persephone screams for her mother.
Dancing from a frozen winter to a seductive summer,
innocence is stolen by temptation.
This classic Greek myth journeys through the
forbidden and the unrequited, telling tales of loss,
heartache and growing up.
With stunning movement and heart pounding song, the
Young Company present a piece of dance theatre that
will leave you breathless.
Persephone Rehearsal Schedule
May
Saturday 3rd – 4-8p.m.
Saturday 10th – 4-8p.m.
Saturday 17th – 4-8p.m.
Saturday 24th – 4-8p.m.
May Half Term
Monday 26th - 5-10p.m.
Tuesday 27th - 5-10p.m.
Wednesday 28th - 5-10p.m.
June
Saturday 7th - 4-10p.m.
Monday 9th - 6-10p.m.
Tuesday 10th - 6-10p.m.
Wednesday 11th - 6-10p.m.
Performance
Thursday 12th to be confirmed
Friday 13th to be confirmed
Saturday 14th to be confirmed
April 24th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Miranda (Assistant Youth Theatre Director) says:
Just to ammend a typo before Tid kills me, Miranda (Assistant Young COMPANY Director)
April 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Joseph Wallace (Ex-Assistant Director) says:
As soon as I take a step back it all kicks off! Typical. It all sounds massively brilliant and exciting. Congratulations. Here’s to a fantastic, diverse term of young people’s theatre – Cheers!
April 24th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Becci Griggs says:
MUSIC FOR THEATRE 23RD APRIL
I couldn’t agree more with everything Anisa said about the laughs we had. It was truly amazing. I didnt realise such simple tasks could turn out to be so funny. Thats just one reason why people should come and join us!
I didnt really know what to expect from the session but decided to go along and then make up my mind. I am definitely going back! It was so much fun, and everyone seemed to be on the same wave length which was really great, as I think we will get to where we want to be.
I didn’t know much about cabaret either! I only had the English misconceptions that Anisa refered to earlier, so I really enjoyed hearing from Peter about the darker European Cabaret, that I had never considered before. In only two hours I learned so much, not just about cabaret but a lot about improvisational singing too. I normally this quite daunting but the atmosphere of the group was very supportive and I wasn’t half as scared as I normally am when put on the spot with some words and an accompaniment. Yet another reason to join! It does wonders for your confidence.
Am really looking forward to writing some songs and other material. I’m also excited about the prospect of watching some old films because I think it will get me thinking about the messages behind the acts, which I would hopefully then be able to use to make my own contributions throughout the course a lot more truthful to Cabaret.
Can’t wait for next week and all the new things that we will discover.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Joey Hickman (Young Company fan) says:
Hi.
Just sitting down, getting ready to type this blog entry gets my adrenaline going, as does every young company and PIT session I ever go to!
On Wednesday 23 April, the first PIT session of the new term, we were welcomed by new faces, new haircuts and new prospects for the BOV Young Company. After being heavily involved with the Young Company last term I was looking forward to a little break but low and behold – I am confronted with tonnes of amazing workshops and activities I can not bring myself to avoid!
This term the title and subject is ‘directing’. Exciting! We were told as a group it was a chance for individuals to push both themselves and others around them - something I am very passionate about so that got my mouth watering to begin with. I felt it was a nice twist on the usual Young Company structure because a lot of the terms have consisted of group based work, which combines the ideas of all of the group members but there is nearly always a prominent figure leading the group and shaping the piece. This new term will allow Young Company members who aren’t usually as out spoken and consciously creative to extend their experience and stretch their ability. Something the Young Company is always doing but this term should accentuate this brilliant quality even further.
We started playing games in the session and the winner of each game was chosen to be a director of a group. Once three directors were found we split off into groups. From the very beginning of the session Tid had told the group to be thinking and conjuring up ideas to play with, keeping in mind ‘moments’. ‘Moments’ being, moments in life and/or situations people or things find themselves in.
The previous day I had thought of an idea about having someone on a train or bus with music on headphones in their ears and someone doing the soundscape of the tinny sound heard by those surrounding that person. It sounds simple and boring but it was an idea i felt I could experiment with if I became a director during the evening.
I did become a director.
So I played with that idea. We were given a good 45 minutes to create a piece of theatre with one or more distinct moments. It was a difficult task - directing people you knew very well, trying to have a good time but at the same time feeling slightly under pressure to create a good piece of theatre. The group I worked with were co-operative and responsive but the task was still challenging, however, being challenged is always a good thing in the long run.
After our time was up we watched all the pieces. It was amazing how different each of the director’s pieces were. I felt each of them displayed a different level of experience and knowledge of how much they had worked with Tid and the Young Company. I, personally, have been greatly influenced in recent months with working in the Young Company and with the directors. It has changed my whole view and approach towards theatre and theatre making – a change which has no doubt been beneficial.
I’m writing tonnes! Sorry.
Each of the director’s pieces was quickly analysed by Tid and then we had 5 minutes to change them, going down a path we may have taken if, for example, another idea hadn’t been put forward. When coming back, some off the pieces greatly changed but some only changed in one area. I felt the more analysis and/or criticism Tid gave about a piece, (before we were sent to go down another path) the more a piece changed.
I came away from the session and felt I hadn’t done my best but that was far from a bad thing. i realised I hadn’t challenged myself enough while directing, which in turn made the piece less exciting and interesting to watch. I came away having learnt something, which is invaluable when it comes to a Young Company. Its about learning and understanding why things work and don’t work.
It was great and I’m not just typing that! I am overwhelmingly privileged to be apart of such an amazing company of talented leaders, directors and young people, we are all so very lucky!
Next week better be good.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Felix talking year 10 and 11 thursday group! says:
On Thursday my group found that the term will be about directing. Our stimulus was creating theatre around ‘a moment’. Our exercises included ‘killer tick’, an exercise similar to ‘tagged’ however when you are ‘tagged’, you die by falling slow motion to the floor, whilst crying a note, whilst everyone else freezes and hums. This is to warm our voices up, learn names and learn how to ‘give focus’ to those who perform.
Specifically we learnt about the fine balance between creating a piece of theatre which is aesthetically interesting, or perhaps abstract in its performance, whilst still keeping a sense of narrative which the audiance can keep up with or relate to.
My group of six tried to express the idea of waking up from a dream and realising that everything has gone wrong. It seemed we wernt clear enough about the ‘waking up’ part. Instead the majority of the action was all of us shouting panic striken noises whilst all physically showing the same movements which can come with panic. What we ended up with was maybe too abstract in its performance, thus the audiance didnt have a clear story told to them from the start. People watch theatre to have stories told to them; sometimes this story telling can become too text based or clear cut. It is importnatnt to find a balance where a clear story is being told, but individuals in the audiance can still ’see’ different things going on within.
One director chose to make his group portray the consequences of one moment in time. They used nice use of their own voices. A person dropped their mobile phone on the street, and this resulted in individuals running into, or over it. There was a sense of a mini-chorus at the beginning, but these people broke off into there individual characters (whose lives become affected by encountering the dropped phone). The morphing out of the mini-chorus and into the characters seemed to happen too quickly, or not sharp enough, until the plot and key moments became unclear because of the increasing complicated story. In this instance the audiance was maybe given too much information.
fee
April 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
first SAMSON AND DELILAH session says:
Hi. ‘Samson and Delilah’ performed by the young company, shall be the last show performed in the studio, before any radical changes take shape. For this reason, there should be a bigger marketing scheme for the production, trying to get more people to come and watch. This is great, as it will be the last opportunity for many, seeing the theatre as we know it today, for the last time! And OFCOURSE the show will be a spectacular show for the theatre to go out on….
The production is open to anybody in the company over year 10. I like working with people from different age groups, because I’m always brought to new ways of thinking and acting.
Before arriving i didn’t know much about the story, other than what was written in the blurb on the advertising sheet of paper. The backbone of the story is of a strong, powerful man with extravagantly long hair; Samson. He gets seduced by a woman of great beauty; Delilah. He tells her that his strength is linked to the length of his hair. She or SOMEONE cuts his hair off, leading to his downfall.
The company’s overall style of working means that we can add, take away or invent whichever subplots, characters or themes we feel still feed the story. The plan so far is to begin the show in a setting with a nondescript theatrical climate, where ‘formal business women with bin skirts and tied back hair can act alongside Arabian night like characters’. Also, the idea is for Samson and Delilah not to speak throughout the whole show, only interacting through their journey physically. Chorus work will be key in our performance, with mini-chorus within the main one. One of these mini-choruses hopefully will consist of girls, who sing the story throughout.
We were split into groups and had to come up with a short piece which expressed strength, seduction/beauty and chorus. Then the boys stood on one side, with the girls on the other. We switched genders, with the boys walking forwards as Delilah’s ‘element’ (LIKE earth, water, air) and the girls doing the same for Samson. We interacted with each other when crossing, without using words. We experimented with lifting each other up. Then the Delilah’s became Lionesses as the Samson’s became lions. The (literal) girls seductively purred while the boys did a mixture of aggressively snorting, growling and purring. It was hard to try and take on the physicality of a lioness, while interacting, lifting and purring.
IDEA’S FROM THE END OF THE SESSION:
Each chorus member could have their own partner who they interact with throughout the show.
Chorus could change at points to lions
Samson having ever growing giant dreadlocks, which the chorus help, pulls out as they grow or interact with.
The set consisting of scaffolding going from the theatre floor to second seating level, which we can climb up and down from.
Samson and Delilah being played by more than one person at stages in their lives
Bald chorus members who sprout little shoots of hair?!?
April 26th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Emily Thompson (Session Assistant) says:
Just to say that I’m sorry I haven’t written something sooner (what a bad example) but this week has just been an absoloute whirlwind of energy and excitement!
After a short break from the brilliance of the Open day; it was so lovely to come back to such a large group of talented and intersting people.
The groups I assisted this week were:
Monday Yr 9 Group 1
Tuesday Yr7 Group 2
Wednesday 16-18 Group 1 and PIT (performers in training)
Thursday Writing for Theatre and 16-18 Group 2
Friday SAMSON AND DELILAH!
All of the sessions included a magnificent (ofcourse) introductory talk by Tid (Young Company Director)welcoming new and old members to the wondeful world of BOVYC (-Bristol Old Vic Young Company-lil’ gehto abbreviation for you there!)
TERM THEME = DIRECTING (GET INVOLVED AND TAKE INITIATIVE)
We played a variety of warm-up games detailed by Danny earlier ‘Sheriff’ ‘Killer Tick’ ‘Tragets’ and then embarked on creating.
The brilliant thing about the Young Company now is that the environment in the room is one of joy, excitement, and mainly a willing to be there, and create the best piece of theatre you can.
For me the highlight this week was seeing new people enter the room and just slot into the vibrance of the older members. Simply Fantastic!- No social politics or dirt from the drudge of day-day life interupts this buzz of creativity.
If any of you guys need detailed notes on the sessions then ask me at the end and I’ll photocopy the notes I write up for you; but I think this is a space to share thoughts, ideas, and opinions.
For any person reading this blog and seeing the sudden flourish of the Young Company-IT DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN OVER NIGHT!
For the past 2 years (of which I’ve been involved in the Company)BOVYC has been daring, challenging, bold, and innovative (and I didn’t just take that from one of Tid’s blurbs!)
Both Ian Wainwright and Tid have shown such a detailed amount of dedication and passion to the Bristol Old Vic that many of it’s most established members/patrons should recognise and be most humble about.
These are the people leading the way in intergrating theatre work with ‘young’ people in Bristol, Nationaly and soon Internationaly.
These are the people who will, and have, shaped so many people’s lives and loves for Theatre and it’s associate Arts.
These are real life and down to earth role models for being (even if they are two Northeners!)- all I can say is Thank you on behalf of so many and keep creating!
Bit of a Gladiator moment there for you!
Keep posting people!
April 26th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Anna Carter says:
Im In Yr 9 and The First term Drama Session was Fab!
This Is Because,, we all went in groups and Made a Once in a life time scene.
In My Group we did a Suicidle Scene.. where Emma The Main acter in my group was about to jump,, when her lover came and stopped her and was like Pleading her to Not go,,But we had to other Characters ( Me and another girl) We were the voices and we old her to Jump and that her life was not worth it at all.
It was really fun to perform and also to share our ideas aswel.
I Think the New Guy (Ginger boy)
Who directed us was Great!
He Knew what he was doing and he wasnt bossy at all,, whats good!
I do Enjoy the Games,, But i think that they take up to much time!
Last session was hard to make a scene up in 5 to 10 minuits and perform accurate.
I think one Game is enough.
I Like My Leader,, Hes funny and can be very serious and he has a BIG attitude wat can be funny,, but scary!
He does bring out good ideas and, i liked how last session he got all of our ideas and changed them to be Better what made us think more.
I think at the end of each month or Term we should put on a Performance to each of the groups and them to perform to us aswell. Each performance would show the groups all the Things we have done in a group and stuff.
I hope My ideas and My comment help you and made you Happy Lol x.
Anna Carter
Loveyooh x.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Georgia Comrie says:
I am in year 9 i really enjoyed the first week back. We did a really fun piece of drama in which someone (in our case it was claire) would direct a piece about love at first sight. It was really amusing and very fun. Claire you were a great director!!
Georgia Comrie
April 26th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ella Comrie says:
I found this week’s drama session was a really good start to this term. In this yr 9 sessions we had to pick specific moments and the director of our group had to help us create this moment for the audience to understand what was happening .I thought this was a really interesting and creative idea. The group works were all really good and the director all did very well!
We also played 2 really good games: killer tick and sheriff. I love these two games. This has been a great week and I am always looking forwards to the next week and what we will be doing. I think that we will have a very successful term
April 26th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Naomi Newell says:
Dance theatre session last Friday was hilarious… nice bit of street dance chillout after all the Persephone stuffage. Best bit had to be the dance off between us all… just so funny basically
Can’t wait until next time
xxx
April 27th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Rosie Giarratana says:
Well hello there guys! Wow, check out all the great comments! This is a bit strange for me because I’m leading the two yr 7 sessions this term - Hi gangs - looking forward to next week. I embarked upon my first BOV summer school when I was 16 which means i’m coming up to my 10 yr anniversary of being involved with this fantastic theatre housing a world famous company. I couldn’t be happier. I’m delighted to be leading sessions and also assisting the junior YT sessions on saturday mornings which keep me feeling young and silly - thanks you guys! Not forgetting persephone which will shortly be rising again to drag everyone down to the underworld!
So, my sessions this term are also focusing on directing. Which is not an easy task, as we are discovering. In my opinion, Directing is all about problem solving and team work. You have to be able to work with your company and technicians to solve the problems that the piece presents. I am challenging the yr 7 groups with one of my favourite plays but perhaps one of the most difficult to bring to life on stage - ‘The Woman in Black’. We will be using extracts from the play to focus on specific problems each week, in particular, creating atmosphere and physical storytelling. There is also the added bonus of playing with a larger cast as the play is usually performed by 2 male actors only.
My groups are subjected to warm-ups too! recently we played ‘king of the jungle’ which is best seen rather than described! I’ll also be using lots of ‘getting to know you’ games to try and remember everyone’s names better! As I’m a sign language interpreter also, we learn a sign each week! This week was RESPECT. It’s good to practice this when people say something you think is particularly good or interesting rather than spending 10 mins discussing the fact that you feel that way. Brecht always said that actors talk too much - I couldn’t agree more!
All in all, looking forward to the summer term! Really lucky to be working with such inspiring ‘young’ people and mentors such as Tid, Ian and Miranda. We wouldn’t be able to create the work we do and inspire each other on a daily basis without the unrelenting support we give each other. Thank you!
Until next time…..
xxxx
April 27th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Molly says:
On Tuesday last week I got chosen to write this blog,so here goes…
Once we all got into the right groups, myg roup, yr 7 went downstairs to our room. We started off playing ’splat!’ or in our teachers words, “sheriff” (she says it sounds cooler but I prefer saying splat because I’m more used to it). I managed to come second and then third on the next round in which Brodie won both rounds. We proceeded on to playing killer tig - which I’m not so good at.
Our focus this term is ‘directing’ , so we got into groups with 1 director, my groups director was called Hannah. She decided to do an interesting dance thing about ’solemn people’. She said adults would like it when some girls said it was a bit pointless. So when it came to performing it, it was much more different from the other groups. And when it came to feed back time we had a fair few criticisms and only one good thing. So the group decided to improve ours and put in speech and a plot. I was a servant at a party and whenever I tried to offer people drinks they had to move away from me (as if I was holding a ball of fire)and make excuses why they couldn’t have my food. So our piece became much better. Well that’s basically what we did. I enjoyed it alot!
April 28th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Becci Griggs says:
I totally forgot that I had voulenteered to write the blog this week!
So, first session back at dance theatre … a huge giggle as Naomi said above. It was great to see some new faces, in particular the boys, as they seemed to be few and far between at dance theatre last term.
This week we warmed up with our normal games of killer tic and targets, followed by some stretching. Then we moved on to learning a routine to the song “low” by flo rida. When we started we danced in about double time, and I was quite content with that speed, so when Miranda put on the much faster track it was a bit of a shock. I think I managed though … but not quite as well as some of the others. The dance had lots of “acrobatics” in which were … interesting to say the least. When we came to the “free-style” bit in the middle we split off into pairs to choreograph four bars of movement. We then ended up showing these in a dance off which was neatly rounded off with a one on one battle between Theia and Miranda! It was all VERY funny, and we found that some members have some … hidden dancing talents shall we call it! We finished the seesion with our good old favourite, dancing (cant remember the name of the step) along the diagonals of the room in pairs to “Joleyne”.
All in all a good energetic way to start the new term, although it was a bit of a shock to the system after the Easter break! Looking forward to next seeion.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
mai thomas says:
I thought that this week was really good. we are doing the woman in black and it is very creepy. we havn’t actually got to the creepy bit yet but there you go. I think soundscapes for theatre is a very good thing to practise as a group. I think that this term will be very good.=]
April 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Ellie Roser says:
I’m in the yr 7 Monday group! =]
Today we played loads of games and we also worked on a scene from a play called ‘The Woman in Black’
It was great fun! =]
H e H e Can’t wait for the next session!
Rosie’s a GREAT teacher
Thanks ….
Ellie x
April 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Ellie Roser says:
H e H e Mai and me put a comment at EXACTLY the same time =]
April 28th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Rose Reade says:
Ok, Today was great, the year 8s and 9s joined together so we got to meet some new and exiting people. We were told to get into groups with one of this weeks directors and just direct!! You could do whatever you liked with your actors, there were some very interesting ideas that people came up with.
One of the hardest things i found about directing was trying to explain something to your actors and they dont understand, and you get really frustrated trying to tell them your imagination!! I can sympathise with tid now!!
The onnly thing i want to say about youth theatre is that my friends and i feel as if there arent enough performance oppourtunities for the younger groups, its all for year 10 and up.
Apart from that this term has been great, I’m loving all the ABSTRACT ideas floating around, theyre really great
Cant wait till next week!!
April 28th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Katie Hope says:
Monday year 9
ok, hi.
the session this week was really good. Even if Tid was a little high on caffeine. We did a sound thing this week when we used differnet sounds that came in gradually to create a piece of theatre, but also weaving a story into the play.The play I did was based on Big Brother and that the computer had taken over and killed everyone. I playedI thought the whole cast was brilliant but emma was utterly cool.
We also played the game sheriff (well that’s what it’s called according to Tid). I was the first one out because I said “bing” insteaad of “bang” even though their both the same thing kinda of.
just to say hello to Emma, Leonie, flo, Ed (edwina) and Tiddberry
katie xx
April 28th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Anna (Session Assistant) says:
Year 9 group 2 Tuesday 22nd April
So, after a welcome back and an introduction to this term’s theme (Directing) the groups split off and the sessions commenced. The year 9 group had five new members of the Young Company to welcome, who had either not worked with Tid before, or simply, it was their first ever session.
We got under way with two games, the first being “Sheriff” (NOT Splat!), a game which requires a constant awareness of the people around you, and a complete group focus. We played this a couple of times through until everyone got the hang of it.
Next up was “Killer Tic”, a game based on “tag”, but with some exceptions. For many people, it was the first time they had played the game, but we all soon got to grips with it. Killer Tic is really useful for developing many theatre skills. These include: Clear communication, giving energy and focus to a moment, being constantly aware of your surroundings and honesty in theatre. Again, we played a couple of rounds of this and everyone seemed to like it.
Then we got onto the main aim of the lesson, which was to split into five groups and create “a moment”. This could be anything: A Marriage, a death, someone breathing, someone knowing they are about to die. Each of the groups were led by one of the newcomers, not an easy start by any means!
The moments picked were: A suicide, two people falling in love, Someone in an airport carrying a bomb, someone being killed, What appears when someone lights a match. We were impressed by all the groups, and Tid went through and showed each group what he would have done in their scene.
All in all, a great first session, with hopefully more like this to come!
Anna
April 28th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Danny (Sessional Assistant) says:
Wednesday 23rd April 2008
Group: Year 10-11 Group 1
Session Goal: Direction
Leader: Miranda Cromwell
Assistant: Danny Prosser
What is a director?
Some of their answers were:
“Stepping back and having a look!”
“Having the last word!”
“Someone who leads the play!”
“He takes control!!”
Games/Warm up
Killer Tick- This is a game of Tag with a difference. When someone is on it, they must tag as many other people in the room as possible, but everyone has two defences from being tagged, one is to run away and the other is to call out someone’s name in the room. Once somebody else’s name has been called, they become it. Once someone is tagged everyone must freeze and hum, as the tagged dies in slow motion to the floor with a loud open mouth note. Everyone must actively freeze, if they move while someone is dieing they must die themselves. The company use this game as a physical and vocal warm up, making their voices and bodies active for the session. It’s also a test of focus, memory and honesty.
Performance Exercises
Today’s performance exercise was called Slaves and Masters. The company split into pairs and in these pairs one was a Slave and the other a Master. The Masters job is to order the slave to do anything, climb a tree, try your best to get out the white box, pull Danny’s socks down, ANYTHING, with in reason. The Slave though can interpret this order anyway their like. The task challenges were for one to think creatively and response to the performers, the other is to repose to direction and think about interpretation.
The pairs were joint up into groups, each group with a director, directors wanting to direct. In their groups the director watched as the performers directed orders to each other and interpreted them. The director was asked to response to the play, and write down things he/she liked in the performance exercise. With this the group sat and discussed both the directors and the performers’ ideas in response to the exercise, and then the director and the performers created a piece of theatre.
Performance
The performances were diverse, clear and well executed, though not without fault, each performance was strong.
One group looked at the story of a girl and her imaginary friends, using scale, space and symmetry. A group took the rules of the game, passing on orders, and used that to create a piece based around a spoilt girl having a photo taken. Another group used images explored in the exercise, soundscapes and individual physicality to create a surreal piece based around war. In contrast another group set theirs in a coffee shop, and explored the interaction between characters achieving certain gSession Assistantoals, such as ordering a coffee or trying to find a willing husband. The last group brought us into a circle, where the very little or lack of interaction between frustrated silent characters told different stories of different people.
This week’s blogger was Nick, see Nick’s blog for an inside view.
See you next week, Danny xx
April 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Danny (Assistant Director) says:
WATCH OUT, THE VAMPIRES ARE BACK!!
Last night (Monday 28th April), we began rehershing A Vampire Story again, for the National Connections Festival.
All the performers are back again for a one off performance at The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath, and were all buzzing after a speed read through of the play, all without scripts! Well remembered guys!!!
Rehershals all this week:
Tuesday 6-8pm
Wednesday 6-10pm
Thursday 6-10pm
Friday 6-10pm
Saturday 8am, at the Theatre Royal Bath
For everyone interested in seeing A Vampire Story, either again or if you missed it last time the box office number for the Theatre Royal Bath is 01225 448844, or visit thier website http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk.
For more information you can also visit http://www.ntconnections.org.uk/home, the website for the National Connections Festival!
Our performance of A Vampire Story is this Saturday 3rd May at 7.00pm!! BE THERE AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!
Cheers, Danny (Assisant Director)
xxx
April 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Bob! says:
Hello everyone,
todays session was gd, we got put with the year 8’s or 7’s, not sure.
we played
Killer Tick! And then
Sherrif!
we then got split into 2 groups and had to work as an onsomble.
we then got into smaller groups and had to make a scene out of the onsomble thing.
x
April 29th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Cherry says:
HIYA, well today in our yr8/9 session we worked on our directing skills, we were put into groups of about 5-6 and chose a director. At first we used our warm up exersise to show the director some improvisation scenes. Then the director took actions, movements, phrases and ideas out of the scenes and put them all together to create the main performance. The performances varied widly from comedy to thriller to symbolic. This has been by far my favourite lesson. I hope it inspires you lot out there to join in and become an actor in the making. BOV!!!!
cherry xxx
April 29th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Cherry says:
omfgg BOB i swear bob is not a real name people just say it to describe nameless peeps?? lmao see yaa’ll. luvvv xxxx as tid says CHECK IT
April 29th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
RACHEL says:
Molly you forgot that i won a game to!!
XXX
April 29th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Stuart says:
Yeah, his name’s Bob…
Anyway, I enjoyed the session today, I didn’t particually like the directors ideas and lines but I went along with it. I had fun and enjoyed watching the more abstract pecies, even if you couldn’t always tell what was happening they were very gripping.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Orla says:
Haha, you mean like our abstract piece?
Yeah, I loved the session too.
We found out some things, like Bob has hairy legs=P
Awww, that was funny…
April 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Charlie H says:
Yop
The session yesturday (30/4/8) was v poorly attended. where are you peps. Tid’s group and Maranda’s group had to join together, it was very good. Continued to workk on the director theme, worked on Samson and Delilah to give tid ideas for what to do. (don’t actually know the play but it seemed to work ok lol)
Everyone needs to be there next week, come on, better when there is more people. (hope that that is the same for both groups
)
Open rehursal for Perseffonie (is thqat how you spell that????) yeah the dance theatre show, this Sat 4-8. gotta speak to maranda if u wanna go.
(as tid says)
CHECK IT!
May 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Miranda (Young Company Assistant Director) says:
Open Persephone Rehearsal Saturday 3rd 4-8p.m.
This is an opportunity for anyone year 10 and above to be part of the first Dance Theatre production at the Bristol Old Vic and be last to perform on the main stage before the refurbishment.
Persephone was performed at the open day on the 13th of April, due to public demand it is being performed again on the 12th, 13th and now 15th of June.
The open rehearsal will be a fun devising session to re cast and develop ideas from the show. If you attend the workshop and can commit to the rehearsal schedule (scroll up and see earlier blog) you could be part of this exciting production. Although I make no promises!
Even if you cannot be part of the show it will be a free, fun taster into the world of Dance Theatre.
Go on, why not???
May 1st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Miranda (Young Company Assistant Director) says:
If you want to attend.
Phone 01179493993 Education @ BOV ask to speak to Emily or Tom and say that you will there. Its that simple.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Max Morris says:
Hello, In case you haven’t met me yet, or have no idea who I am, My name is Max. I’m a newbie to the Wednesday Yr 10 & 11 group.
I don’t have much to compare this session with, and as I hardly know anyone yet, please bear with me.
Yesterday’s (Wednesday’s) session was a frenzy of activity from the start, the Yr10 & 11 group and the 16-18yr old group joined forces this week (because of a pathetic attendance) and Tid took the session for all of us. Before their group arrived we started with a warm up game thing, I have no idea what it was called. But basically, you had to hold one fixed hand behind your back as ‘the target’ and use your other hand as a gun. The aim was to kill other players by nabbing them in ‘their target’ and avoid getting killed yourself. I was pretty rubbish at this game, my reaction time must be useless, and in two games I was knocked out almost immediately and managed to kill absolutely no-one!
The second game was called something like.. um.. ’sheriff’? (someone please tell me if i’m right) For this game we got into a circle, a pretty big circle because of the expanded group. We were centred around Tid (being the ’sheriff’ or whatever). Everyone had a gun/’hand’, and if we got shot at by Tid then we had to duck, and then the players standing to either side had to draw and shoot at one another as quickly as possible, and ofcourse, the slowest shooter died.
Well done to all you ridiculously reactive people who won the games, I’m amazed by your speed. I’m such a looser at those kinds of games, but it was all good fun.
After those initial warm-ups, directors were chosen for individual groups of about 6, we broke up and started to work on our own short creations of something based around Samson and Delilah. Looking at particular parts of the story, and drawing on what little knowledge we each had of the plot. After some discussion and rehearsal the individual groups performed for the rest of us.
There was a huge variety and some really intriguing performances. I was interested in seeing similar themes sometimes cropping up, and similar characterisation of Samson appearing also. It was interseting to find out how little everyone actually knew about the story. Tid’s feedback and analysis of each performance gave us all something to work towards, and think about in a little more depth, the main focus for improvement being to bring more pace and rhythm to the performances.
We then got into new, slightly smaller groups of 4 and worked on a second piece, trying to take on board what we had just seen and heard, and use a completely different scene, or part of the story.
Again, a very engaging and thought-provoking experience. It was good to see how some people had developed ideas, and new groups of people worked together differently.
The session ended with some songs from the Music for Theatre girlies, which I thought was really amazing, and it gave us all a teaser of the songs which they’ve been working on for Samson and Delilah.
I hope this is an ok blog, and not massively boring.
I’d just like to say thankyou to everyone for making me feel very welcome, and helping me to get involved. I’ve so far really enjoyed the sessions and can’t wait until next week.
Thanks xxx
May 1st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Becky T says:
Hey all! I’m writing the blog for Tid’s Year 10/11 Thursday group, so I hope I get this right!
Ok, so we started off with a couple of games to warm us up and prepare us for the session. We had a couple of rounds of “Sheriff” and a couple of rounds of “Killer Tick”.
Then we were told to get into groups of three and were given roughly one minute to create a small piece, with one person directing and the other two performing. All of our pieces we frozen scenes, so our goal for the next minute was for another director to create a piece with movement. These were lacking text, so each of the next one minute pieces had to start with speech.
Having decided which piece we all preferred, we were instructed to get into groups of six. There were three groups, and each group had to nominate a director and decide what type of stimulus we wanted, choosing from text, pictures or both.
The theme of the pieces was Samson and Delilah, the new youth theatre production. I was chosen as the director and went up to collect our picture and text.
We developed our pieces over the next 45 minutes and then performed them to the rest of the class. We went first.
In our piece we performed the first half of the story’s most important scenes, ending on the scene where Samson’s hair is cut. We integrated the narrator as a character and tried to use the actors’ physicality to portray different features, including the fire and the lion.
The next group to perform chose the scene where Samson’s hair is cut, using comedy to move the plot forwards. Their piece was very funny and interesting to watch.
The final group showed Samson’s loss of strength in a different way, first off Samson being invited into the hall to play his nose-guitar(?) and then failing to play it when he was enslaved.
When it came to Tid’s feedback, he seemed to say the same thing to every group; we lacked atmosphere. All of the pieces had good aspects, however the way we showed the story left the audience feeling blank.
I learnt a lot from today’s session. It was a challenge to direct and not participate, but I think I managed it quite well. I’ve taken away that next time I need to use a range of theatrical skills to create an atmospheric piece, with characters the audience can relate to and a more interesting way of creating the situation. Just because I had a stimulus didn’t mean that I didn’t need to inject some creativity!
Thanks for reading, I hope that was useful
Bec
xxxx
May 1st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Peet C says:
Parent of Young company member just flagging up that there are quite a few clashes between GCSEs and Persephone rehearsals & Performances as well as rehearsals for Samson & Delilah.
Will Try and come up with some ideas before writing again but presumably this will be a problem for a lot of Young Company members
May 1st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Tid (You know who i am) Check it! says:
Hey there All
Blogs are great people, love that mad stuff!
Max Morris, a new guy, and what a blog, well written, fun and insightful.
Welcome to all you new guys!
Peet C
Yep, we are looking in to it, but most have been able to commit so far, bad time of year with exams but hopefully there can be time for both.
oh and BOB is a very good name, most of the time short for Robert i think, and of course short for Brilliant On Bongos.
Narcissus and Echo rehearsal on Sat 3rd May is cancelled, I is goin to a party!
Check it
Tid
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:46 am
Nathan (you will know who I am when I become rich and famous!) says:
So…I volunteered to be this week’s blogger for the 16-18 group…mainly due to the lack of enthusiasm by the rest of the group to do so!!
Anyway, as you will hopefully have gathered from previous blogs, this term’s theme is “Directing”.
But before we started with all the directing tasks, we endured a 20 minute lecture/ramble/rant/inspiring speech by the infamous Mr Tidbury. In between some bad jokes and typical Tid behaviour, we were informed about upcoming events at the old vic. These include the next Young Company production, which is the amazing tale of Samson and Delilah; open auditions for the dance theatre’s production of Persephone this saturday; and the production of The Red Man, performed by Tid’s professional theatre company Fairground Theatre at the Tobacco Factory in June.
After this speech we played a few warm-up games of Sherrif and Killer Tick. Sherrif is a simple enough game…shoot the person shooting at you…too slow and you die. Shoot a hostage, you die. Twitch, you die. In fact you have to do extremely well to survive a game of Sherrif!!! Killer Tick is far too complicated to explain on here…as many of the youth theatre guys can tell you, based on how many people got it wrong last night!! But overall they were both great fun and got us ready for the session ahead.
The first directing task was in groups of three, where each person in the group had to have a turn at directing the other two and creating something that they wished to see on stage. We had 30 seconds to do this!!! There was various interesting, wierd and funny moments created, including a slap aimed in my direction, cavemen having an argument and a barn dance!
The next task was in groups of five or six, and revolved around the upcoming production of Samson and Delilah. Each group had to decide upon a director. The resulting directors were myself, Maisie and a new face in the ever-smiling Jess. Tid then made us choose between either a image or text-based stimulus from a selection revolving around Samson and Delilah that had been put up on the wall. Jess and I both chose images with Maisie deciding upon text.
With my group, we discussed the storyline that we could piece together from what each of us knew, and then decided to concentrate on a stage in the story when Samson, who is an immensely strong man due to his magical hair, has had his hair cut off and has therefore lost his strength, and is being humiliated and tormented by people in the town. I decided to stage this by having another new face Sam playing Samson, and then with a chorus of townsfolk tormenting and hurting him with their touch. A problem I found was that I could not really word what I was trying to do very well to my group, which probably caused some confusion and uncertainty, which I think showed in the final piece. Tid said that there were some good ideas in the piece, by portraying the weak side of Samson - as many people would choose to show his strength - and also the use of a chorus. However, Tid also said that the chorus were not confident or defined enough, and the use of one person being the centre of the piece, then a group coming in on that person and affecting them in some way is clichéd and over-used, so would only have worked if the chorus and performance had been more cleverly done. Jess’ group also had the comment on having the cliché, but performed it better, as they committed more and had more changes in the dynamic and impact of the piece, which made it more effective. The final group, directed by Maisie, created a very original cabaret-style song, based on a poem about the tale of Samson and Delilah. Tid liked the idea, as did the rest of the group, and said that it would have been a really good piece if lines had been learnt and articulation was better….but overall a very good and original piece!
Well I hope I haven’t bored you with this rather long blog, but I’m hoping that seeing as I’ve written so much in this one that I won’t have to write another one for a while!!!
Have fun in your next session if you are already involved with the Old Vic, and if you aren’t then GET INVOLVED!! It’s really worth it and I learnt a lot from my session last night.
Much Love
Nathan
xxx
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
rich hill says:
hey all
It’s time to make a comment based on the perfection which is the young company!
Although i missed the first session of the new term, wednesday was an enjoyable session with plenty to talk about. due to the new performance of Sampson and Deliah, we rightly started devising some theatre to give potential ideas for the show!
After warm-up games, we got on it! creating humour sketches, serious ones and “breathtaking” battle sequences!
My main message for the blog is this: If you are part of it currently, i hope you realise what a wonderful thing we are part of. If your not-GET ON IT! The young company gives you a chance to discover all types of theatre, as well as experience things you dont get the opportunity for-like going camping in a forest for the National Youth Theatre festival. The delights that are available are endless!
Right thats about it, although i would like to say one more thing…me and a good friend of mine let down a very special director for the upcoming play of “Persephone” which is great by the way!! I just like to say we are truly sorry and hope it all goes well, which im positive it will.
Anyways, Rich Hill signing off! Nasher! x
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Tian says: says:
on Tuesday i was picked to write a blog so here goes we had to make sounds of london and go in groups and have directors. Two people in the group had to read the script from a play, The women in black then we performed it in front of the groups.The groups reflected on how well we did.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Twin 2 (Michaela) says:
Hey people!
Just thought I’d say how much I’m loving this blog and youth theatre for that matter! Yes it’s taken me a while to read all these comments but let me tell you it’s been well worth it, similar to being part of the youth theatre itself in a way, as we (being me and Twin 1, Kathleen) only first started attending at the end of last year (due to a delayed realisation of how incredible it is!) and man has it been worth the wait.
The sessions, not only comprising of the best people in the universe, give you the opportunity to obtain and develop skills in drama, performance, team-work, direction, you name it. However, in my opinion, above all these incredible attributes lies one very special youth theatre trait and that my friends is called having FUN!
Every time there is something new to learn. Lasts night sesh involved us experimenting with direction and being directed. We experienced that although working in a group and building on each others ideas is both interesting and exciting, assigning a director enables a clearer more focused pathway for one persons specific ideas to develop and flourish, with adaptations within the group.
Not a single session has gone by where we don’t play a few games. They get us geared up and ready to rumble! A personal fave has got to be Samurai!! The countless times we have desperately refrained from laughing in the deadly silence as we swipe our invisible swords and kneel in front of our opponent awaiting the next move, eager to respond.
The great thing about youth theatre is performing to each other and receiving feed-back. It’s so refreshing to hear constructive criticism and view a piece from one another’s point of view or interpretation.
I don’t think I can thank the group leaders enough for their endless efforts of creating the most amazing environment possible on Earth! And if your not part of this incredible crewage I suggest you do something about it right NOW!
Love you all!!!
xx
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Clarissa aka 'Token black person' says:
On Wednesday night in the 18+ group we still worked with the idea of having a director in the group, but they were also allowed 2 take part in the performance.
Before we got down to the main ’sesh’ we of course played ‘killer tick’ and ‘targets’ which I ever so nearly won
- but never mind there’s always next week!!! 
We came up with quite a few ideas for the upcoming show ‘Samson and Delilah’, I particularly enjoyed trying to tell the story as a chorus but making sure it was clear and interesting for the audience to watch. My group set ours in a bar and used a kind of ‘chinese whispers’ effect which became out of hand and the wrong information was passed on, leaving one person to pick up the pieces and relay the information properly - this made it quite comical but informative.
After writing my 1st blog I have noticed that I use quite a lot of inverted commas hmmmmmmm….
Peace out!!
Clarissa xxxxxx
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Naomi Newell says:
Dance Theatre Friday session…
More fun times, we devised some partner bits and bobs through using the techniques of ‘points of contact’; my favourite being the one where the follower rests upon the leader’s hand whilst the leader takes them around the space before taking their hand away, so the follower falls to the floor somewhere across the space. Haha rubbish description so just… come to the sessions guys!! Haha.
I really liked to see the newer people get more into and excited about the sessions because I can imagine how hard it must be coming into a crazy world where everyone loves touching each other (ha) so fair play to all new people!! We love you!!
The main objective for the next few weeks is to totally master the old ‘low’ routine… Maybe one day we’ll be coming to a session near you to dazzle you with our street styles… Haha… Or not… either way!!
Nighty mcnight, I’m shattered after Persephone rehearsal today… actually I might blog that one now, clog up the old internet some more
xxxxx
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Naomi Newell says:
Oh my life, I just flat out blogged and it didn’t publish it GRRR So here you are again… Dance for Theatre Friday’s session!!
After some warm up games (targets… but instead of just sitting you have to do sit ups and press ups… argh!!)and dancey stuff we started on the devising of some partner pieces based on ‘points of contact’. My favourite one was where the point of contact was the leader’s hand under the follower’s chin, and they had to work together in order to understand where the leader was trying to take them. When the leader took their hand away from the follower’s chin, they would travel across the space before landing on the floor. I really liked this one because it was a very affectionate and I could distinguish clear relationships between the partners. I think that will be really useful to put towards our next show of Persephone… gotta love some affection on a Friday!!
I also really liked to see the newer members of the group getting more into it and becoming more relaxed with performing in front of the others. I have so much respect for the people who come into our groups and sessions without having any previous experience of the Youth Theatre’s craziness… Just remember new people that you’re awesome and we love you!! Don’t be afraid to express yourselves because you’re actually allowed to… It’s why I am so proud to be a member.
Well hopefully that one will submit now… much love!!
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Matt Nolan says:
For the group who performed ‘Vampire Story’ at the National Youth New Connections, It was outstanding…the play had so many great elements with quality acting to enhance them!
My company performed the first Burying Your Brother In The Pathment, and we met some of the cast, they we’re nice guys who are too modest! ha!
May 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Emily Thompson (Session Assistant) THE JYC! says:
I’m never going to be able to blog all of my sessions but here is one about the lovely Junior Young Company members that I assisted on Saturday.
Really early get up to be there at nine after leaving the Old Vic having done 10-10 the day before.
The year 3’s were lovely, bright, enthusiastic and absoloutely hilarious!
We learnt what an Image was and even explored the world of Metaphors!
After looking at the pictures in a book we gave them the task of recreating something/someone from the image. Then they placed themselves on stage to fit in with a new scene that they had created.
Gradually we added movement and sound until we got a world of small wonders to enjoy watching!
Then we had the Year 4’s who were introduced to the world of devising in small groups; alone!-recreating the most suprising moments from there lives. This was asked of both year 5 and 6 as well and ranged from:
…’I was eating my sandwhich on the beach, when suddenly a huuuuuuuuge seagull came down and took it out of my hand!’…to
…’Once I went to my freinds house and he told me he’d completed loads of levels on my game for me-was really cool.’
Absoloutely loved the whole experience of these busy little minds and the endless possibilities that lie ahead for them.
One of the highlights was the end of session discussion that took place after the year 6’s had devised pieces based on Samson and Delilah.
The conversation was both insightful and sophisticated; and put most of the discussions held by Senior Young Company members to shame.
Not many people recognise the amount of effort, time, and skill it takes to work with such young people but Miranda (Assistant Young Company Director) does it with absoloute class, and makes it look a breeze!
LOVE THE BEANS GAME!-Think it’ll be appearing in a version adapted for the Senior Young Company- watch out for the French Bean-Oooooo La Laaaa!
Keep chatting!
May 4th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Ruth Newns says:
On Monday the yr8s joined with the yr9s again and we were lead by Tid and Emily.
First we played a couple of games-”Sheriff” and “Killer Tick”, then Tid put us into groups. We decided on a director in each group, and Tid told us that we going to do stuff on “Samson and Dililah” as it’s one of the plays that the Youth Theatre are performing.
We had to work from an image that the director picked from the wall and make a scene in half an hour.
After performing the scenes to each other we reflected on how well we did.
I thought this was fun and interesting, particularly working with the yr9s.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Becci Griggs says:
MUSIC FOR THEATRE SESSION 2
okay so its taken me almost a week to write this blog entry, for which I apologise! This week it was just me and Anisa, as Peter was away, and Theo and Natasha were otherwise engaged. So we set about writing some songs, with the intention of finding some music for Samson and Delilah, but were happy to see where it took us.
We began by writing our thoughts on war, because of the potential for Samson and Delilah to be set in this time. This got us thinking pre 1940’s music, such as Gershwin etc, and we sang some songs from the era to get our creative juices flowing. Anisa wrote some beautiful lyrics, and came up with a tune, to which I fitted chords, and we came up with one of our songs for the evening, it was a very relaxed song, slow and if you listen to the lyrics, really really sad.
Then we wanted something a bit more upbeat, so I gave anisa a rhythm on the piano and she inprovised and found some lyrics around it. We then set it, and experimented with ideas from our previous Cabaret session with peter, and also with building up the music. We then had many ideas of where to take it next, but didnt have the time to explore them.
At the end of the session we performed our two new songs to the years 10 and 11, and 16- 18 groups, which was good as we were able to get their responses.
Overall a great session! But we are still severely lacking people … if all this sorta stuff I’ve been talking about sounds like something you’d be interested in, you really should come along and give it a go! You will learn a lot I guarentee, and its very fun at the same time.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Stuart says:
This week the year 9’s joined the year 7’s. We played some interesting and fun games. After the games, we looked at a play called “The Woman in Black” which the year 7’s will be studying over the next few weeks. We were then challenged with showing a journey on stage. This is harder than it sounds… All the groups enjoyed the challenge but I don’t think any performances worked.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Lucy says:
In the 14-16 session today ( Wednesday )started with a good hearty game of the blob and then sheriff.
Miranda brought in descriptions of four characters, using these we created characters and improvised interactions. Most people choose characters fitting with the style it was written (i.e. posh toffs).
After this we split in to four groups to look at each character more closely , put them in to a context and devise a moment in there life. To keep with the terms theme of directing a director was chosen by Miranda for each group. Our group did “the sponge” who was a slimy socialite out to suck up everything he could and choose the moment in his life where he realised he couldn’t charm his way through everything.
After watching all the performances we chatted about improvements that could be made in them all for 5 minutes till the session ended.
It was a lovely escape from revision.
Lucyx
May 7th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Helena Middleton says:
16-18 year old Thursday group.
In today’s session I took on the role of director. Tid asked us all if we had had any ideas over the week about something to direct and I had been thinking about the idea of an escape. The image of someone climbing over and around a wall of bodies was particularly clear. When we got given our groups Tid lay down our directing task; we had to spend time doing ‘exploration’ in which we would literally play with ideas surrounding the theme we had chosen. After this we had to devise based around what we had discovered during our exploration and then finally rehearse and perform the piece.
Straight away I had the actors up on their feet and explored the different ways in which an escape could be portrayed. I had four of the actors be a wall whilst one person tried to find any possible way through it, I had every actor play a prisoner reacting firstly to a guard entering their cell and then to a visitor who offers to help them escape, I played with the idea of a soundscape, asking the actors to make the noises they would expect to hear in a prison under high alert. I also asked each member of the group to recount a time when they had felt trapped and wanted to escape. Each of them came up with interesting past stories (including being stuck at the bottom of a pile on!) and all of them said that they experienced a moment of absolute fear.
I was keen on making the physicality of the piece quite prominent and so we developed ideas from the exploration to create a physical based escape. Through trial and error, the error being Lily got a nose bleed whilst being lifted over the shoulders of the other actors; we managed to create a series of moments which could tell the story of a prisoner’s escape. The group were really responsive and I was able to feed off their ideas as well as them helping me to develop my own.
When watching the piece I was pleased with how moments of panic contrasted with really still and quiet moments. For example, after the whole cast was screaming as an ensemble the prisoner jumped into their arms and they all went silent, the only thing you could hear was her discordant breathing. In this moment of quiet the prisoner climbs the wall of the prison and stands on top of it, the audience is left questioning if she did finally manage to escape.
The feedback I received was really positive and I felt really thankful towards my group who were brilliant. After all three groups performed we were given a lesson from Tid in giving useful feedback. I don’t think any of us were particularly successful. After a good old chat with Jack about the session we both felt pleased that we’d directed this week and came away feeling like we’d learnt something about directing methods. I feel that starting with exploration is a particularly good way to generate ideas.
And that’s about it. Bit of an essay but hey ho, enjoy!
May 8th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Libby says:
Yesterday four people showed their ideas on what a performance could be about or include. I had to direct for the first time as i had come up with the idea of having a blind person. It was really tricky and I, for a few moments, regretted chosing it. But it turned out well. The four people i had to work with were all really good and helped me out as i was stumped for ideas most of the time. We did a few exercises in being blind and then brain stormed some ideas. In the end, i thought the whole thing turned out okay.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Lily Drewry says:
SO interesting looking over the bloggageness!
No one else volunteered so I did…
At the begin of our session on Thursday 6-8pm with Miranda and Anisa we played blob which a fantastic game. The blob broke apart so the blob lost.
Then we got given a sheet with a old fashioned character on. There were four different sheets one with Model Sponge one with Model….I cant remember what the other ones were but I was Model Sponge. On the sheet was a drawing of the character and a description, how they acted, what they liked ect.
Then Miranda told us to pick out a phrase which we liked and make it into a modern day character. We were then told to move around the stage in character. There was a really wide selection of character some were depressed some were chavs some were young children.
We walked around the space some more in character and then we were told to grab the person nearest you. Miranda told us to talk to your partner for 1 minute in character about our day up until standing in that room, I think? Once that was over our parter asked us questions in character and we had to answer the in character.
We then had to go up to another character in the room that you thought would get on well with your character and start a conversation. If they were already in a conversation you had to deal with it the way you would if you were your character.
Then we did that again but with someone you thought your character would not get on with.
After that Miranda said that the people you were talking to at that moment you had to make a short scene with them. I was with Nemo and Sophie Maxwell (HILARIOUS!) and ours was me walking down a street being a bit of a rud (If you don’t know what that means it like a chav/gangster) and Nemo shouting at me.
Anyways! Cant really be cheesed to go and write anymore because I have to go and help my Mum and Brother move a table.
BOV is amazing! And if you miss session then you’re and idiot (Poppy Hargreaves! Where have you been? And you India Hicks!)
Ok y’all! Bye! X
May 10th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Daisy Harris says:
Im in the year 5 group on satday
and to day i reaaly injoiyed it because to start with we got given a prop to give us idease for a sort peice but we wernt aloud to use it in what we did we got a bell so we decided to let maya be the plummer who brougtht a bell thinking it was a toilet plunger so she went to a house and as you put it in toilt as bells do it rang and blue light started coming of it so she touched the bit that gos in the middle and got trammsported back in time to aliens and the took one look at her and shot her then the aliens touched the same bit and got transported forwards in time (the present) and a shop assistent askes them if the would like some help but they shoot her but then we got put in difrent groups with another prop which we were allowed to use exsept it hade to be som thin else we decided to mak a pineapple into a slug-tortoise and some grass amd weput the grass on tortoise and then said “Its the mighty slug-tortoise!” in funny voice then turned in to super heros and saved some one who did not need saving.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Catrin says:
hey
Just to say, a big thankyou to Miranda who directed Persephone and who takes dance theatre sessions on a friday. Being in Persephone was AMAZING! I really enjoyed the experience and I am really looking forward to being in the next Persephone production.
It is sad that Rich, Tom and Joe arent going to be in the production
but i am sure that Joey Hickman and Chris Farish are going to make good replacements as the show is looking good already! 
Thanks again to Miranda!
love Catrin xxx
May 11th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
kateee the W says:
hey ho!
last week was brill,i was chose to write da BloG so…
there wernt many people there coz of may day but i think it came to a good advantage. the 9’s ad 8’s were 2gether which was cool to make new friends. i directed again which was interesting. we had a theme for the piece: samsung and delilah(have i spelt that k?)
any way it was fun to create a piece around a play which i had never heard of it was v cool and i learnt alot! tnx tid!
kateeeeeeeeeeex
May 12th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Jack Drewry says:
16 - 18 year old group, thursday.
I had the oppertunity to be a director last week (this blog entry is a bit late so its last week now) which was AMAZING. Tid asked us if anyone had any ideas for things they would like to explore and then put on stage. I said I wanted to do something to do with time travel, as thats something that i think would be quite hard to show on stage.
Time travel had been of theatrical intrest to me since i wached the film “Memento”. Its one of those films you have to see at least 2 time to understand it fully but basicly the whole film is backwards.
With this backwardsness in mind, for the exploration of the idea of timetravel, I asked my actors to go backwards through everything they had done since the entered coopers loft. I did it as well and you realise that its actually quite hard to rember things in that much detail backwards.
In the end our piece was someone rewinding an old family video showing episoedes from a life, it was unclear who’s life it was, and at the end the video was ejected.
I learnt a lot in the discussion afterwards. Tid said that we didn’t make our ideas clear enough for the audience, we kind of got too inolved in developing them and not thinkin how we could clarify them. Which is a valuable lesson.
I was very impressed with the other groups. Louis makes an epic crouching tiger / hero army sequence and Helenas escape was unbeliveably brilliant!
Thanks Tid yet another quality session
Jack
May 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
J Wallace says:
MUSIC FOR THEATRE - SESSION III
Crows, songs and manikin girlfriends
Or ‘The Mysterious World of Peter Reynolds’.
The players stood in the room talking amongst themselves, the smell of summer hung about their youthful persons. Suddenly the door burst open and the charismatic Mr Reynolds swept into the room sandwich in one hand, accordion in the other. “Ok, create a sentence, choose a prop, place it somewhere in the room then move around the space” and so began the session.
After whispering words of intimacy to inanimate objects we created a movement which was echoed with detailed replication by the ensemble. We then turned into a flock of crows and swooped around the rehearsal room, waiting for an action we could all respond to. Prams holding books, ornate rusty lamps, foot ladders, and a trombone lay strewn across the floor and they listened to our lines as we began to sing.
Eventually the family of crows settled on a telephone wire and the song began to form, with all its intricacies and delicacies; Peter at the piano, Anisa by his side, and the crows, squawking and shifting, restless to sing. ‘A song in six parts, for a family of crows’, a story if you like, a story, if you choose to read it.
Opera, sound-scapes, melodies, harmonies, waltzes and dances ensued as the song was set. Then the players were squeezed, along with their bizarre objects, into a tiny cupboard. The show begins… the lights dim. A family of crows shuffles onto the stage. “Face out front; don’t come out of the line. This is cabaret!” The characters sing their pieces as they gaze outward and interact with the other performers…
This wasn’t cabaret as a form; this was cabaret as a way of thinking!
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the session was over. Sleek, chic, see you next week!
May 13th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Miranda (Assistant Young Company Assistant Director) says:
Hello all…
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has left comments, apologies to all you guys who have waited a while to see your blogs appear but I have been reassured it is now fixed. Hurrah! It is great to see some of our youngest members getting involved too. It is really insightfull to be able to hear your thoughts and responses to the sessions and to the challenges of directing.
Good Times people, Keep blogging
May 14th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Tid (Young Company Director) says:
Yo… I am loving the blog people, get involved!
All you people who like theatre, make sure you check out Mayfest. There are Brochures at Stage Door, loads of eciting theatre to see, including an interesting piece called Where You Can’t Foloow Directed by some guy called Tid.
Go see as much as you can, an can someone explain to me how you do the smiley face bling, i like it.
Tid
May 14th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Lola says:
hiya,
I would just like to say last session was great. We did some more directing work. Last session we had four groups, each with a director. It was really interesting for me cause I have never really been directed by someone of my age, I’ve only been directed by an adult. Ravenhill was our group director, he wanted to put the story of David and Goliath on stage. His version of the story was held in a boxing ring. David was a weedy little boxer, while Goliath was a super strong one. They battled it out in the ring with a running commentry from two reporters.
I thought it was an original idea, I have never performed something quite like it, and I found being directed by Ravenhill an interesting experience.
See you next session!
May 14th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Jade says:
Hey all,
This wednesday.. well to begin with, I was well bummed, because my bus broke down so I was like half an hour late.. But i joined just as the games were ending.. one last round of Killer Tick!!
Then we split off into groups of 5 and were given an object. If i remember rightly there was a pair of Burger flipping things (Yeah, i just asked my mum what they were called and she had no idea either!) a bale of corn which managed to spread all over the floor throughout the session, a bucket, a hobbyhorse, a flask and a bag of toy soldiers. We then had to make three actions that we associated with this and one peice of text. I was in the ‘burger flipping things’ group, and we were pretty baffled at first… all we could think to do was walk around like robots pretending to be burger flippers! But I think our ideas slowly evolved into other ideas in the end, and when it came to watch everyones, they were all pretty wicked: lots of guns/armies/war ideas, and i really liked the corn one where they were all growing or swaying in the wind.
So Miranda then asked us which bits we liked.. and some of us ended up being directors for these groups that we enjoyed watching… because, of course, this term is all about directing.
I was a director and, to be honest, the whole idea of being in charge is abit scary really.. theres so many ideas and you can only choose one!
But we went with Thea’s idea of a workers song and carried it forward from there.
We all spent about half an hour developing these ideas into a peice of theatre.. great fun, and because of the lack of people, we had joined forces with the 14-16s, which meant we were mingling with people we might not have met or actually talked to before. I certainly hadn’t!
So yeah, we all sat down as an audience after half an hour and watched through everyones perfomances.
& They were all pretty good!
We had machine/factory type things, flying soldiers (lol!), dying corn fields, Seductive women, people on fire and a corner shop robbery. some great ideas and some great feedback. I really like the fact that we give each other feed back.. it sort of.. gives us a chance to understand what this peice of drama has meant for other people our age.. i just think its great!
Yeah, it was a really great session, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Big up to BOV =)
See you guys next week yeah. xXx
May 14th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Sophii the Shaw says:
Righteo looks like the website has been fixed. So it’s all good to blog. Safe.
This is for Miranda’s dance theatre session which may I add was rather fabulous. We warmed up with a dance we had recently learnt to a song called ‘Low’ which you are bound to have heard recently and if not WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! I think it’s safe to say it’s not a dance we’ve perfected yet, but we WILL all get the freeze position and be able to do the moves backwards.
Most of our session was spent working with a partner and focusing on points of contact and guiding people using those points of contact. They could be from the chin, chest, hips…you name it! We took this idea to get a serious of moves we like and put them together. We each performed them to everyone in the group then Miranda told us to find one moment in our sequence to focus on and create a short dance from it which could have some narrative behind it.
Being able to focus on one bit made you think in the reasoning behind the movement and create a story behind it. We had stories of cheating couples, unrequited love, a sexually frustrated partner with someone who’s too tired and many other scenarios.
As always an uber fabulous session!
Cheerz Miranda
Whatta dude
Sophii x
May 15th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Bryher- yr10s+11s on thurs says:
really good session this week…
in groups, we got given a stimulus object and had to individually create 3 movements related in some way to the object or inspired by the object, and then write either 3 lines or a paragraph inspired by the object.
We then came back together as a group and devised peices from the material we had come up with. i think it was really interesting how the peices we ended up with, if you didnt know what the stimutus’ were then you wouldnt nececarraly have realted them to those objects. but having a stimulus definatly gives the peices more direction because you already have some matirial to work on rather than just having to come up with ideas on the spot. i think it gives the performaces a lot more depth.
just want to say thankyou to Miranda- all the sessions which you’ve lead i have found really interesting and inspiering, so thanks a lot
love to all xxx
May 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Lydia Blakemore Phillips says:
year 10 - 11 group thurs 6pm
Hello everyone…
Well today we started off with two games of Sheriff and Targets which was really fun and then we had 3 directors stage pieces based on scenes in novels which we had read.
I was a director for this session and i based my piece on a scene from Catcher in the Rye. After we had preformed our pieces we got feed back, as usual, and as it was my first time directing i learnt what worked and what didn’t.
One of the other groups did a piece in which was based on a scene where a woman was giving birth to twins. One of the twins had downs sindrome so the father gave it to a nurse to take away, telling the mother that she had one child that was a baby boy. The other did a piece where this person had written a letter and sent his two friends to send it to a priest. They read it even though the writer of the letter had warned them against it and they were then murdered by the priest.
The sesh was really fun and i’m sure the last 5 mins was too even if i did miss them as i was sent out with Pollyanna about a Pot noodle joke…sorry it had to be mentioned
see you all next week
xxx
May 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
EDIE woolley says:
woah just read daisy Harris’s year 5 group comment! sounds like an abso awesome session they had! i particularly liked the part where they all got transported back in time to aliens!! and then the aliens came back to the present, sounded like an epic adventure! and it was all by a bell….
May 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am
samson and delilah pics says:
for all who arent involved in samson and delilah, you should know that we want to give it a ‘world war’ esq feel!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Michelle England says:
ursday 16-18 group
Hey there
Another awesome session - actual feel so privilaged to be part of BOV and Tid is an amazing person to work with. Actual feel like I learn somehing valuable in every session we have.
I was dirrector this week
Loved being dirrector - it’s so much fun and I liked the piece I created with my actors. We were asked to take ‘a moment’ that we thought we could create something theatrical with, from a book we had read. I chose a book that was about a girl that wouldn’t speak. With my actors we explored some ideas and I set them on tasks - such as improvising the meeting of the characters, making gesural moves to represent what the girl was trying to say & creating a physical choreographic section exploring the fathers thoughts.
One challenge the guys found was that they were the only ones who spoke and so they found it difficcult to improvise with their partners. I asked them questions about their character and we talked about how there doesn’t always have to be speach to make the piece interesting and a simple movement such as the quality of touching someone can tell the audience so much more.
After we did about 30 minutes of exploration we started to structure the piece, and played with the pace and rhythm. We used material we had found successful duing the exploration period and then we worked with putting the pieces together. I felt like all the stuff we did before creating the final piece was really valuable and helped develop the ideas for the piece.
I decided to place our piece in a corridor of audience members - so that the audience was standing in two lines looking in at the actors. I felt this was important for both the actors and the audience for various reasons. For one the intrusion of the audience made the speach down the end of the corridor much more naturalistically, intimate and real. Also it made the audience feel the longing much more of the father struggling to get to his daughter at the end of the corridor during the physical section.
Overall I felt the piece had depth to it and everything we had in the piece was important and showed something significant to ‘the moment’. And my actors did a great job - well done peeps
I would have liked to explore further and develop this piece, as I feel there was alot of interesting parts we could have pulled up and played with. I’m finding 2 hour sessions are too short these days - I get too excited and into the task & the session seems to go soo quickly. hehe.
Overall it was another amaz session
I enjoyed being able to watch my idea physicalise through the process, and it’s intersting watching everybody else’s pieces form too 
That’s all for now.
Much love to all
Michelle xxx
May 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Emily Greenslade says:
14-16 year old group thursday
Seeing as i have been so unbelieveably crap with attendance these past few weeks (exams and the like-honest)i was immediately,and rightly,assigned with the bloggage review-and what a funky idea it is too!
15th may
After about 15mins of intense persuasion by Tid to go see ‘Where you cant follow’(see it or die-unfortunately i missed the show, so not looking forward to the next session…)
Once all hyped up we were assigned the always fresh and exiting task of the evening. Today it was the exploration of particular novels and using sections from them that were appropriate to stage.
At first it was difficult to come up with a unique idea that wasnt just a replica of the book, but as the process went on we seemed to forget about the novel and focus on the creation of the piece.
We ended up with an interesting and complex piece about pressure, babies and distress accompanied with the all important soundscape-representing the babies heart beats, i liked the attention to detail. definately my favourite piece.
Which was followed by mine about awkwardness through two people’s conversation, with someone behind acting as a mouthpiece to the real feelings through words. However there were 2 people acting as the inner feelings through actions, which could have been used more effectively.
Finally a piece in a church and about a letter ‘that could not be opened’, which caused a healthy discussion,about it being clear but the ‘easy route’;the main focus for the rest of the evening.
funky session as ever! emx
May 17th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Jon Pascoe says:
Thursday 16-18 Group….
Right, well basically we continued with the theme of “Directing” this session.
After the initial games, Tid had asked people who were reading novels to think of a section that they wanted to portray on the stage.
After about 5 minutes of discovering that there was only one person in the room that was actually reading one…to Tid’s horror….two other people were chosen as they had thought of sections from books that they had read.
I was put into a group that was going to act out a book about a girl that, due to a fire related incident in her past, couldn’t talk.
We started by seperating into two little groups within our group consisting of one boy and one girl. We were told that the boy was the Father who had started the fire and so was in a mental institution, and the girl was (obviously) the girl…We were then given a minute to improvise trying to plead and talk to the girl about how sorry we were and find out things about them, while they were not allowed to speak. This proved very difficult and Kane and I struggled to keep the conversation flowing as there was a certain point where the limit of what we could say without recieving a response was reached.
After this, the two girls in the group were set aside in their own group and were told to improvise gestures in order to show how they were feeling.
Kane and I were told to come up with 4 or 5 questions to ask the girls, overlapping each other as we spoke, increasing in tempo. When we had done this we set up a line with the girls sat side by side at one end and Kane and I stood at the other. We then asked these questions while the girls responded with their movements.
After this we came up with the idea of Kane and I being the split personality of the Father and I was the pleading, kind and regretful one, while Kane was the angry and confussed one (as his daughter won’t talk to him). We then used physical theatre to get to where the girls were sat, climbing over each other and shouting our lines. The girls then moved to where Kane and I had begun and then we began the scene of one of the daughter coming to visit her father. This then ended with the daughter leaving and the father being left with nothing.
The session taught me a lot and I had fun taking part in it.
Cheers Big Dogs
x x
May 17th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Rachael Evans says:
14th May.
Wednesday sesh…14-16 (and some older people)
The session began as per usual with a classic game of KILLER TICK, proving tricky for the modestly numbered 16+ group.
Oh yeah and before this we all gathered round to listen to Tid advertising where you cant follow, and when you cry in your tears go everywhere.
Continuing the director theme we started off gathering into random groups and creating movement and script inspired by an object.All of them mostly related to war…ours was a petrol can thing .. which we though was a water bottle well anyway it stank as if someone had died in it.
People who made comments after viewing everyones piece was assigned to be director for that particular group.
The most memorable pieces were the hilarious “army man” piece, “Jo’s passionate kiss” piece and “the random wheat” piece.
^ i would say the best one was “army man”.. intense music, dramatic movements & script then one tiny army man chucked in the air
Rakayyel
May 18th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
will nash says:
“WHERE YOU CAN’T FOLLOW”, INSTEAD OF SAMSON AND DELILAH REHEARSALS.
so instead of going to to samson and delilah rehearsals and dance theater on friday we were told to (i think ordered is the best word) to go and see “where you can’t follow” at the bristol tobaco factory with god reasons.
it’s a profesional piece done by Tid’s theater company, fairground theater, for the Mayfest 2008. It follows Liz and Jack in what begins as an allmost comic love story but it soon become more aparent there is more to Jack then we first think. he skips between past and present not even knowing what is going on. it was performed with live music from peter reynolds and with only two other actors and therefore was forced to follow only liz and jacks lives while they were around eachother.
while this limited the charecters somewhat it meant that thier love was truly believable which is very rarly seen in modern theater. we are often simply presented with two charecters how are in love however you could see the personal click between these two.
talking to people after, everyone seemed to love it. th