Drama is exploding at Hurst!
There have been more productions this year than in living memory. I counted recently and found that there have been 40 individual performances this year at over 18 actual events.
Impressive by anyone’s standards. There is so clearly a passion for drama here and more and more people are getting involved and we are moving forward, creating quality theatre and equipping young people, not only to perform if they wish, but also to develop a whole host of additional skills for life. At the AS choices morning in January, I wrote on the board a list of attributes that the study of Drama could help to foster. They included developing empathy, organisational skills, persuasion skills, teamworking, problem-solving, decision-making, sifting data, evaluation, working to deadlines, negotiation…the list was much longer than this.
Two fathers of Fifth Formers came up to me over coffee and said that they were amazed at what I had said; they said that they were having to exercise every one of those skills at work every day (they were both engineers) and were delighted that their daughters would have the opportunity to develop these invaluable skills that would help them in later life.
We have had more student-directed productions this year than ever (with one student courageously directing members of staff!) and we have been lucky to welcome Jonathon Scott to the department. Jon is a fabulously talented teacher and director and all classes have benefited from his passion, enthusiasm and knowledge and the extra-curricular programme has profited too (witness his entrancing first production at Hurst: Pygmalion in November). We have continued the tradition of the Drama gap student with Olivia Robinson. Olivia has been a huge asset to the department and to the College. She has at all times been positive, lively and hard-working. Kate Bray commented during a dance rehearsal that she was leading during The Sound of Music that she was clearly a natural: the cast were silent, focused and hanging on her every word – unusual for one so young.
There have been some great new initiatives this year to follow on from the newly defined Shell Shakespeare Festival, the series of Drama Masterclasses and the house play competition from last year: not least of which was the LAMDA project with Warden Park school. This was a project to hot-house drama talent from both schools and has proven to be very successful. The LAMDA programme in the school has taken off in a major way this year too. There are now over 100 pupils studying for these qualifications which not only increase confidence, presentation skills and self-belief, but which in the advanced grades offer UCAS points to enhance candidates’ applications to the universities of their choice. We not only have a passion for drama here, but we are keen to learn – so we are developing new initiatives and programmes, refining old ones, building upon success. Who knows where it will all end!
12 March 2010