On Monday evening in the Delscey Burns Theatre, we were proud to present Places Please! – a brand-new performance opportunity for our talented UIV students.
The showcase presented three play extracts – The It by Vivienne Franzmann, Eclipse by Simon Armitage and Multiplex by Christopher William Hill – carefully chosen to both challenge and engage the students as they approached their GCSEs. Each piece was very different in style, and the casts had been selected in collaboration with the students to help them develop their understanding of theatre and explore the kinds of performers they enjoyed being on stage.
Between each play extract, four of our LAMDA students shared their exam performance pieces. The result was a fantastic night full of dramatic moments, great characterisation and some very funny moments. As the enthusiastic and supportive audience saw for themselves, the cast and crew had worked incredibly hard to bring the showcase to life.
Here, Florence M, reflects on her experience of working on The It:
‘This past term, we have been working hard in our drama lessons rehearsing our various scenes for the recent Places Please! showcase, from The It, Eclipse and Multiplex. While all the scenes were different and diverse the topics were very interesting and a great challenge to embody some of these characters and learn how to stage and perform these scripts.
The It explores Grace, an average teenage girl, and the ‘It’ that is a metaphorical growing creature. Through this play we discovered themes of mental health, anxiety, pressure, rage, overwhelming emotions, through social media struggles. The ‘It’ grows as she takes in nonstop information, bad news and pressure from school. This ‘It’ creature grows bigger through social media and pressure, but, overall this is an important topic to learn about and should be understood by everyone. Working on The It was very interesting and a new play to work with, a great challenge to try and grasp the idea of the play.
I think we can all agree that the It was a fun play to work on together, I thought that the play was not just interesting but an enjoyable experience for everyone, for small and big parts. The play was similar to our age and very thought provoking to work on, with a busy weekend of rehearsals on Sunday, all of it paid off on Monday when we performed our work.’
Congratulations to all of our performers. Places Please! was a drama moment to remember.
Thank you to all the family, friends and supporters who attended, and to everyone who supported these remarkable young performers. Thank you also to everyone who has helped the pupils learn their lines and gain the confidence to perform, and to our amazing Estates Team for all their hard work in creating magic n our theatre space.
Mrs Anna Friend
Director
