All of the events in the Theatre and Drama studios led to a lot of mess, so this term we are starting up our brand new after-school club of ‘Stage managers galore’. Every Tuesday a dedicated group of volunteers come to tidy and manage the rooms, props, costumes and spaces we use for Drama. Thank you to those who signed up. The students who show dedication and commitment to DC Secondary Theatre have the greatest chance of becoming a DC Drama Captain in the future. Each year we have one student from Y11 chosen to work with the captain from Y12 to run our events. Drama Captains manage the spaces, run lights and sound at evening and daytime performances, support the Secondary school productions and led a whole host of events. We are very grateful for the dedicated work of our current Captains: Leticia and Csende.
Next term we welcome a workshop for Y8 students by the world renowned UK Theatre Company, Trestle. This company makes and performs with masks, as well as a teacher’s workshop, DC is inviting the actors to lead a workshop for our Y8 students, coinciding perfectly with their unit of learning on Masks.
Y11 are launching a brand new Drama unit this year. Replacing the performance of a full-length play, this unit will be deeply embedded in our community of ESF schools. Our Y11 students are creating their own pieces of theatre, supported by an activity, to bring to Jockey Club Sarah Roe School as Theatre in Education. JCSRS is our ESF sister school for differently abled children who have special educational needs. Our students have studied Sarah Roe’s unit plan of ‘We are the World’ and they have designed theatre pieces which complement the inquiry of their target audiences, even creating an activity to play with their audience to support the performance of their play. Students will be taken to JCSRS on the 5 June, and I am sure both our students and JCSRS students will enjoy and benefit greatly from this unit of learning. I am really looking forward to these pieces.