What's happening at YTYT

Rob blogged on yesterdays day at the Hepworth... So Yesterday Yew Tree Youth Theatre had the great pleasure of spending a day at the Hepworth performing, filming and participating in the activities. When I say pleasure it’s a complete understatement, it was utterly exciting, fantastic, fun and just generally brilliant. I feel I should talk about the Hepworth first before I tell you what we got up to because I have so much love for the Hepworth. It’s such an amazing place in what I feel is an age of moaning, groaning recession and blame. It’s like a sanctuary for creativity and for people of all ages to appreciate the things that go un-noticed in life, every time I enter it reaffirms what art can do for humanity. Apart from the incredible things that fill the spaces of the Hepworth the thing that makes it fantastic are the people that work there, they are knowledgeable, engaging and welcoming. All the factors make the Hepworth somewhere you want to go time after time. So let me tell you

It occurred to me after Thursday’s thoroughly enjoyable Black Company session that an integral part of my job is to inspire people…inspire them to make theatre, to create stories, to take risks, to improve their skills, to have the stamina to rehearse, to go through that scene or moment yet another time so we can get it just right…and sometimes people need inspiring just to be able to join in with whatever is happening…so…after panicking about that for a while and then thinking about how weird it was as a choice of occupation I started thinking about it in practical terms… There is a myth that to be inspiring or inspired you have to be spontaneous, original, daring, dynamic…although undoubtedly those types of environments can create inspiration…however on Thursday as is as often the case the pieces were inspired by thoughtfulness and careful planning, some time set aside to think about what I wanted to get out of the evening and what I wanted other people to get out of it. After creati

And...Charlotte Clayton has kindly blogged about the Black Company session... For me, Thursday’s session was awesome. We were asked to delve into our memories and think about the light hearted memories from our childhood involving toys and valued objects, which were to be used to inspire a piece of theatre. So, I sat there and at first, I found it really hard. My mind just blanked and I just sat there and then pop! Banks were unlocked and floods of memories returned to me. Eskimo Bob (it was a coat that gave me that nickname), baby Annabel & my previous satin ballet shoes returned. It just amazed me how much the mind and memory stores and how it stores moments you don’t expect. So… I’m overhauling my bedroom after decades of physical triggers have accumulated and clutter piles have increased. I’m a hoarder, and I cling onto memories like no tomorrow. Constantly finding excuses to keep stuff, it’s like I’m overhauling who I am and what defines me. Nostalgia grips you and it feels li

Thomas McNulty has blogged about our Sandal Castle project So this week has been all about Yew Tree related things and all of them packed into one week…Yes it’s the summer schools my friends…But this one isn’t your Nostell Priory week, this week has been all about working on a commissioned piece of theatre about the Battle of Wakefield for an anniversary festival this September to commemorate Sandal Castle and the battle that took place in December 1460…You can see where the dates connect right?…But anyway so far into the week and all the hard work everyone has put forward means we have our finished prologue after working on a physical based opening, a series of scripted scenes in development and creative writing done on Tuesday from our casts imaginations that have inspired Sarah to write and have a full battle scene…Oh yeah! There’s a battle scene people! So this is where we are at for the moment with the project and we should have more done by the end of Friday’s rehearsal before go

No well thought out prose today with a satisfactory conclusion…instead something that I’ve been pondering since Thursday…well much longer than that but I focused in on it on Thursday…and it’s centred on the question of what do people bring…and by people I mean everyone…what do people bring as individuals to a creative process? There’s a whole Sarah thing that’s become embedded…about the youth theatre being a safe space…a space where other things, concerns are left at the door…that best and worst is a chance to focus on real life at the start of the session so that it can be dropped for the rest of your time at youth theatre. In theory, as an ambition, that still stands and in part I still stand by it…but in reality, as is often the case, it’s much more complicated than this. The reasons for the complexity are plentiful and some more obvious than the others…but the one I want to focus on is the dichotomy between what we are being a richness we can bring to creativity and the fact that

Ellie Moran boys and girls... I really enjoyed this week at Yew Tree; I just have not laughed that much in a long, long time. First of all I went to "writers" on Wednesday which Gemma held at Drury Lane library. I like writing a lot it's just a hard thing too do - as a personal opinion. And I've been meaning to ask to join on a Wednesday night at the writer’s forum but it's just typical of me to keep my mouth shut. But Wednesday made me pipe up. Enjoyed it too much. We did a story on Goldilocks which Sarah had written from an inspirational Thursday night session and we either got the choice to carry that story/script on with whatever you wanted, or we could create our own story from characters we had made up that day. I went with the Goldilocks story because I found it was a really good starting point... for first time writer. I found myself writing two pages without taking my pen off the paper, so that was that and where will I be next Wednesday? Not the writer’

Inspired by the work of the Black Company on fairy tales... The slightly ajar door was irresistible, too tempting to walk past. Tentatively she pushed it further open, could it be this simple? She called, “Hello?” to the potential listeners…no reply. She closed it behind her, thought again and returned it to the open position she’d found it in, now with her at the other side… The interior was basic…the living room into which the front door opened carpeted in the deep reds fashionable in the late seventies…well worn…hiding a multitude of stain and spills…she gravitated towards the table covered in used cups housing the remains of elderly coffee, magazines, papers and other detritus from a long Sunday afternoon of nothing important to do. Leafing through the bag left on one of the chairs, she tried to imagine the owner and then realised she wasn’t that interested…she returned it to the chair…ruffled but intact… She sat down relishing for a moment the dryness and the gradual evaporati

Poppy checked in with us this week and has written a blog which may have particular relevance to some of the people moving on in September...what will be their constants I wonder... There are many constants in my life, most of which are in Yorkshire, my parents being one of them. I know that no matter what I do, where I go or what I might learn some things will always stay the same. My father’s hatred for blunt knives, and his joking complaints when I ask if I can have another of his beers. My mother’s never faltering dedication to her work, and the way she falls asleep in front of the television because of it. The way our house looks like a dolls house all lit up at night, and the sound of the rain on the Velux windows in my bedroom. Things change slightly: my brother grows taller and the dog gets slower and one day he’ll move out and she’ll die but the Aga will always be wonderfully warm, and the smell of the freshly mown lawn wont change. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to lots of

Regular blogster Aaron on our week at Nostell Priory... Hi Yew Tree, and none Yew Tree-ers, it’s been a while but I’m back, not that I’ve been anywhere just a lack of motivation I suppose which I’m sure you’ll agree with. Anyway I’m going to talk about the splendour and glory of the Nostell Priory Summer School (which will be referred to as NPS in this blog from now on.) Where do you begin? I doubt I could get away with just saying it was brilliant so I’ll try to make this a little more articulate. Just the anticipation of NPS is enough to get anyone from Yew Tree enthusiastic and full of ideas for their potential characters, granted not every character trait can be used as it may not work with other traits developed however I would have liked to have seen the ninja in this year’s performance.... Yew Tree is a pretty much an unstoppable force when it comes to the NPS because when things got in our way, and things almost certainly tried to, be it rain or people getting married, we just

So goodbyes are really hard and with the culmination of this year’s Nostell Project, “Alien” this year’s goodbyes begin. It’s kind of becoming an annual thing that Nostell is the last performance for all of those people going off to university and although it’s a lovely thing for people to end on it also tinges it with sadness. If anyone had told me how attached I would get to members of the youth theatre I’d have laughed at them but the truth is that you can’t spend hours and hours with people each week and not develop a sense of kinship…and so when all of that comes to an end…at least in the form it has been in for such a long time…it takes a bit of getting used to… However, spending this week with the Alien cast, both those that are moving on and those that I’m going to have the pleasure of working with for longer, was completely affirming. It’s the privilege of getting to work creatively with, debate with, share the trivial and not so trivial aspects of their lives with these bri

Jonny reports in on the events of Wednesday evening... Today, Yew Tree Youth Theatre put on Question Time(esque) debate. This included four pannelists, CT, Without a doubt, Crooksey and Proctor Pepper. One presenter(esque), mixeruperer, RG Bargi and an audience. The reason behind staging this event was to use the debate for one of the Yew Tree Youth Theatre podcasts. Everything was recorded, massive thanks to Nige and Oz (who held the boom for an impecable amount of time). The audience came prepared with questions to ask the pannelists, question topics consisted of finance, media, education and one more i've forgot that I hope Sarah will fill in for me after I send this to her. (Wakefield) The set up was so professional and the pannelists not only coped with every question but answered extremely eloquently and honestly, recalling moments from their history to justify points and shared their inner thoughts are feelings. The pannelists were extremely brave, they were going into the d

Danny Southern from Sapphire company with his first and may I say accomplished blog... Last year, the script for Beauty and the Beast was amazing, and this year, Princess and the Pea is just as good - if not better! The tale really is a Yew Tree production - I doubt that any other interpretation of the classic children's story could include princesses that are down-right-morbid Goths, skater chicks, OTT girls and who could forget the ugly-step-sister-shrek-esque masculine princess named Manlia (that could actually be a man, but who knows? They could just be really butch?). And only Yew Tree could pull off such a show with "the witchiest witch in all of witchville" called Kate who just so happens to be the most down-to-earth person you’d ever meet. I’m not going to give away anything from the story, but I’ve got to say that you’re going to have to see a doctor after, because your sides will be hurting that much from laughing. It’s that good. Last year, I played Elliot, a n