It's all about the culture...

-
This week, this happy, successful week…full of such good news…
has caused me to reflect on many things. For the purpose of this blog I’m going to document two of the reflections that have stood out to me…and although the reason for them standing out hasn’t been youth theatre related the thought process they inspired bounced me straight back to reflecting on all thing YTYT…

The first point of reflection is a whole thing about comfort zones…I was at a high school on Wednesday doing some work with year 10’s. The work was very much in the spirit of the stuff we do week, in week out, but for 99% of the workshop participants (there was a notable exception) it was very, very new…never the less they engaged…some people readily others with greater reticence…but regardless of the degree they all engaged in some way. The staff talked about how impressed they were that people were working outside of their comfort zones and this made me think about the fact that Youth Theatre members…or at least the majority of them are doing this all the time…this in turn must be having an impact in wider terms…the fact that they are stretching this all the time to some extent…that they’re brave and trusting enough to push themselves…it’s a brilliant thing…

The second reflection trigger occurred in a primary school where in the process of pulling together a performance with 11 year olds there was a great deal of squabbling, unkind words and even tears… The whole thing made me feel genuinely sad…I can not handle wanton unkindness…makes me long for the human race to be simply better people…what dragged me out of this sadness…and it was important that I did get dragged out of it…as who wants to be miserable on your birthday…was the realisation that for the majority of youth theatre sessions we’ve created a part of the world where that kind of behaviour isn’t tolerated…a culture of positivity and kindness. Don’t get me wrong I know we’re not perfect and things go wrong and that I don’t see everything…the important thing is I think that we are trying and most of the time it’s working and even better than all of that is that we have the ambition to get even better…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chloe's Leavers Blog - finally :)

-
  Please excuse how this was written, I do a very silly drama school course, and I haven’t had to write more than my name in 9 months. I’m sat in my silly dorm bed writing me this on my DSA laptop (a win for the mentally ill girlies), realising how utterly bad my ability to Words has become. Anyway.. Leaving YTYT was one of the oddest experiences of my life, and yet, I don’t remember it at all. I’d spent the last few years, waving off some of my closest friends as they went on to conquer their dreams, in a tearful circle, yet all I have is a fuzzy memory and a video saved in an instagram highlight. I’d sell a kidney to try and bring back that experience, to do my final show unclouded by new medication and intrusive thoughts, but as that isn’t possible, I thought I’d finally write my leavers blog, even if it is a year late. I started Yew Tree in 2017, as a way to explore drama outside of the agonising GCSE setting, and across the years, it became a lifeline for me, providing confidence,
Read more

Arwen's Leavers blog

-
I made a start writing this leaver’s blog when I was on a bloody needed holiday over a month ago, on the glorious Isle of Islay in Scotland. I’m re-writing it now, because I think it was naff to be honest. And I’m not in the same mindset as I was then. Also I might have had a few too many drams of whisky whilst writing it there, so there’s that. A line I’ll keep from it however is: “How am I meant to do justice and summarise in my writing the enormity of an impact that Yewtree has had on me these last 5-ish years?” How can I articulate all the skills that I've learnt and developed? The experiences I’ve had? There’s so much, where and what do I start on? So I’ll do just that, and put some of the skills I’ve learnt into use: “You can’t be a creative, a critic, and an editor at the same time” But in fairness - I don’t think I could share and articulate all those things. And I’m not sure that I want to, they’re for me. I can’t put that expectation on myself. The past year I’ve felt as
Read more

Celebrating the past in the present...

-
  Next year Yew Tree Youth Theatre will be 30 years old.   We haven’t quite decided how we will celebrate - any suggestions would be gratefully received. No doubt there will be some nostalgic perambulating down memory lane and some haphazard but joyous celebrating of three decades of creativity we have shared.   Some variation of those two themes would feel fitting. This blog however is something different. This blog is a celebration of the present of those who attended YTYT in the past. Alumni, graduates, previous members – I can never seem to find the right term – but whatever word is chosen I know for sure they are part of the fabric of the youth theatre and I’m grateful to have known all of them, mainly because I have learnt so much from them.   I also can’t put a number on how many people have spent significant time with YTYT over the last 29 years.   I know we started with a group of 8 and now have about 80 members, I know at our peak just before COVID we had about 130 young pe
Read more