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Showing posts from October, 2009
Aaron is back with undoubtedly his best blog to date....take heed everybody... Ok so here is my FOURTH blog entry now, I don't see why people are so reluctant to write a blog, I suppose this edition of Aaron blogs is more of a plea for more people to do blogs every now and again, although I am aware that Sarah does not need the help to motivate people into doing something good. I suppose the reason I am so willing to write these blogs is because I know the type of people who comes to Yew Tree and reads these blogs. I write these knowing that people will take the time to read them like I do when others write them. I write them because I feel comfortable with the people at Yew Tree that I would take a risk in writing these and for me it is a big risk because I get really self conscious when it comes to showing something I have taken time in making. Last rehearsal we had for Christmas carol something brilliant happened for me. we were running through the final scene were I have to cha
The lovely Jess Hopwood...member of the Black Company and honoured visitor to Gold Company today... If you didn’t know, Sarah posted on the forum about a new idea: people visiting the sessions they don’t usually go to and writing blogs about them. I shot-gunned Saturday morning because I’ve only ever heard good things about it, and I’ve never been able to go to these sessions because it was at the same time at my dancing; turns out i’m giving dancing a break for a few months, so what better way to spend a Saturday morning hey? :) Soo, I’m sitting in the circle as people are arriving and it occurs to me just how many people are in the group...it’s huge! I already knew the majority of people from the 17+ group, but it was also nice to see a few familiar faces from Monday night group...and then there were the completely new faces to me, who were refreshing to watch. To get straight to the point, A Christmas Carol is brilliant. I proper enjoyed just being an audience member and the amount

Best and Worst...

Best and Worst* despite it’s almost constitution-like place in Yew Tree often feels a little like Russian roulette… in that I’m never sure what kind of controversy, heartbreak, ridiculousness or inappropriateness I’m going to hear next… However…I’ll let you into a little secret…although at times I deeply resent the rehearsal time it can take up and despite my occasional hard line approach in terms of late comers not being able to participate…best and worst is an incredibly precious part of my week… What would life be without Stacy’s music or food check in? A reminder that it’s the little things that can make life feel worth while… or Matt’s eternal optimism, he rarely ever has a worst…then there’s the flicking of Dee’s scarf or hand or…anything really… that can become more than a little dangerous for whoever is sat next to her…there’s the uncertainty of whether Chelsie will be able to string a sentence together or be full of energetic enthusiasm…and don’t even get me started about Ash…
This week Joanna - member of the Gold and Black Company did the thing I asked people to do which was visit a group and blog about it...partly because I asked to go and assist Danny and partly because she's nice like that... This week I filled in for Rob at the Green Company with Danny. I was a bit nervous to start with because I’d only ever assisted at sessions where they’re a lot younger and far less scary and I did the whole ‘what if they don’t really like me?’ thing but they all said hello (in lots of different emotions, as directed by Danny) and I decided they weren’t that scary… until it was announced that the theme of the session was ‘Beat Joanna’ which was nice because they killed me first in Mafia and made a beeline for me in Funky Seaweed. Then Danny and I had this conversation; Danny: Do you want to run a game? Me: Definitely not Danny: Why? Me: I’ve never run one, I might at Eastmoor soon but I’ve never been to this session before. Next we played loads more games, inclu
Today the blog comes from Amy...member of the Sapphire and Ruby Companies...I would say nice things about her but I'd be accused of bias... On Tuesday night we did a really interesting thing about leaders. We played a simpler version of ‘make it’, where we made letter shapes instead of pictures. I was having lots of trouble with my group, because no one was listening. Then Gemma asked the four oldest of us to come up to the front, she told the rest of the class that they were not allowed to speak, and the four oldest were to try and lead us, so that everyone spelled ‘bottom’ (Marcus chose the word.) I decided to focus on the last part; I looked really carefully and told people how to do it, shuffling people in different directions. I’m a perfectionist, so everything had to be just right. We thought we’d finished but we had two people left over, then we realized we’d missed out an ‘o’! We hurriedly made one and put it in the correct place. The four leaders then went and sat down at

I've decided we're impressive...again

I was chatting to someone yesterday who commented on how busy it was on a Saturday morning at Thornes Park, he’d visited the Gold Company a couple of weeks ago. As I was agreeing with him and telling him that there were over 30 members most mornings I had a flash of the significance of this fact. Over 30 people take the time each Saturday morning to come and be creative with us. They forfeit a precious sleep in and devote the time they could do anything else in, to working with us. That’s just at Thornes Park…over the other side of Wakefield there are another three groups working with Gemma which adds up to another 65 people…so Yew Tree Youth Theatre have about 95 people each Saturday prepared to invest there valuable time with us. To do this they have to negotiate lifts, travel, family arrangements, the plans of friends who aren’t members…it’s pretty complex stuff… So I want to say thanks…thanks for taking this time on Saturdays and any other Yew Tree day (which is most of the da
The wonderful Ellie Moran boys and girls... This is the first time I've written the blog... and I can't say I'm brilliant for writing long paragraphs about what has gone on and what has inspired me, but with Yew Tree it seems so simple especially the Christmas Carol... When we first started to direct Scrooge, I didn't really get into it that much, due to the fact that I hadn't seen the film or read the book. So improvising and devising on it seemed difficult, but as the weeks have gone on my mind has been inspired to what happens next... every week I wonder how the scene will continue, what will happen next, will scrooge realise? Will he learn? And I suppose it makes devising the piece ten times more exciting. This week we did "The Arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Present" it really made us laugh out loud, it must be one of the most brilliant scenes out of the whole play. I play the part of a narrator...and as that part it gives me the opportunity to not

The legacy of a ridiculous weekend...

I was considering the constancy of Yew Tree YT last week. Within that frame of constancy some people are part of the youth theatre and then go off onto the next stage of their lives… some of them return again, some of them check in occasionally… and still some of them do neither but go off to live the rest of their lives independently from us. I was considering all of this in light of the fact that this has been happening, in some form or other, for the last 14 years. FOURTEEN YEARS!!!! I suddenly had a moment of self doubt because the last thing I would want is for Yew Tree Youth Theatre to stay static… So many questions consequently followed…does constancy infer stasis? Does reliability engender torpor (it means apathy… and dullness)? Does consistency inspire complacency? It wasn’t a nice moment…and, in fact, it lasted longer than a moment… The thought of Yew Tree being predictable, commonplace and therefore devalued was all a bit of a nightmare really… But then last weekend happe

Yew Tree is occassionally ridiculous...

“Today has been a ridiculous day… It started with Christmas Carol rehearsal which is the most rewarding thing in the world…then followed by the journey to York in wind that made driving scary… Then I lead workshops with non Yew Tree People – which raised a whole set of interesting issues and finished by watching a performance of something that fundamentally didn’t fit with my artistic principles but that entertained me anyway… What I was left with was the sense that I get to spend my time with the most amazing people…” The above was my attempt at putting a blog together on Saturday night…a blog that I was going to look at and sort out on Sunday morning…but because the weekend got increasingly more ridiculous…I haven’t had chance so I’m going to leave it at that because it pretty much sums up Saturday…and also the other two blogs for the week succeed where I failed…you know by actually including information and things… Promise I’ll do better next week…
Aaron from the Black Company and Gold Company reporting in as well this week...it's been a busy time...you can absolutely hear his intonation in the way it's written... Me again, I'm here to write about the workshops that a few of us attended yesterday in York. We started the workshops all together with a popular Yew Tree warm up 'people to people' and this where the nice things I'm saying pretty much come to a stop for the workshops. We were split into groups with a unique system of coloured scribbles on the stickers with our names on. The first workshop I attended was puppetry and hearing this I was fairly excited about it because puppets are cool. But here is a quick definition of puppetry just incase you're not aware of it, "Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance which involves the manipulation of puppets." We didn't do this. We MADE puppets. If the process of making puppets is called 'puppetry' then we did do a workshop on pu
I don't need to introductions for this one he's done it all himself... Robert Girgis here aka reviewer for you....Last night the cast of 'Conversations' had the chance to see a piece of theatre by Pluck titled 'The Specialists'. It contains three characters, Mr Yarlsberg and Mr Abanathie are violinists and Miss Kadifachi is a cellist. These three musicians have the task of putting on a classical music concert for the audience. Everything however doesn't go to plan. First off I can't emphasise enough the musical talent of the actors, it takes something quite special to play to a high standard while moving furniture, negotiating a second violin or teaming up with a fellow actor to play one violin while the other is blind. This piece really did add fuel to the that fact that theatre is so incredibly diverse and entertaining. If I had seen the premise of the play on paper I may have been in danger of writing it off yet it did manage to capture me. The one th