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Showing posts from May, 2011
Rhiann and her take on Crimson's performance... Whatever whatever happened to Grace Connor… forever a mystery, isn’t it? Well not to Crimson Company after we performed our version of Sarah Osborne’s script about a girl who says enough is enough and leaves home without saying a word. I played Maggie McKenzie (of the Longwood Gazette). She’s a fresh new journalist who doesn’t really understand the story of Grace Connor but slowly get’s wrapped in Grace’s world by meeting her family who’s struggling to stay together, becoming acquaintances with the school children who voice opinions about Grace which make it clear of their relationship, meets close loyal friends who give more insights into Grace’s life, and teachers who only see the perfect student. On Tuesday, we performed our one night only show of ‘Whatever Happened to Grace Connor’ (after our dress rehearsal to Sapphire on Monday night) and let’s just say, it was more than amazing. It felt like after months of hard work, we’d fina
Mel blogs about Black Company's game session SOCKKKKKKS! Well... What a note to OFFICIALLY join Black Company on, it was just pure brilliance. Ha, Park Bench, The Chair Game, Ninja Warrior, Mafia, etc, etc... still, nothing that night seemed to beat, Can I Come To Your Party! Although it was just a games session it's nice to have a couple of hours just relaxing and having a laugh, it's nice to be able to forget about the stress of exams and leaving and starting new places for everyone and just enjoy the time you have left. For the people that are leaving, you will be missed dearly but you get to go out with a bang - Classics at Clarke Hall, Young Theatre Makers and the Nostell Week :) Can't wait! Love to Yew Tree and all it's members x
Charlotte Clayton responds to our preparations for the Classics festival Classic – adj. ‘Of the first class, of the highest rank or importance; constituting an acknowledged standard or model; of enduring interest and value’ - That definition couldn't be more accurate. I’ll state from the outset that I adore classical literature, I mean, I LOVE it. A lot of people moan about it because the language is sometimes difficult and entirely different but that makes you delve into its meaning and understand it more. I’m writing this blog whilst the boyfriend watches the Champion’s League Final and tbh, I couldn’t be happier that I have something a lot better to do ! A classic novel invokes an emotion inside as you read it, it presents something that the modern world, in my eyes, lacks and that is, a need for a connection. Nowadays, anyone in the entire world can be contacted in a heartbeat via email or even Facebook. Back then, there was the classical romance written by letter and not just

Decisions, decisions...

I’ve changed my mind three times about what to write about in this weeks blog…on Monday I decided that I’d write about Crimson Company’s performance of, “Whatever Happened to Grace Connor.” This decision was based on my delight at seeing how much some of the performers have developed in terms of their ability and their performance quality. I was blown away by some of the strength of the characters that actors had created through hard work, bravery and skill. Standing at the back of the theatre I had the pleasure of watching a cast draw their audience in so that they really cared about the characters and were bothered about what happened to them. They brought my script to life in a way that made me very proud of what I had written. However on Thursday I decided I might want to write about Black Company’s session instead. Over the last couple of months Black Company have had to meet a number of performance demands in quick succession and as such have been working exceptionally hard.
Chris Marsay wrote this almost as soon as he got home after Crimson's performance of Whatever Happened to Grace Connor OMG!! Okay, just gonna brace myself for this blog. There’s so many things I would like to write but I have to make it short. I am so proud to be working with you lot and you all make me realise the simple things in life I take for granted like people to be able to talk to and things in life that inspire you to become what you want to be, personally my inspiration is definitely Yew Tree. All of us at Crimson have worked so hard and did we pull the play off or did we pull it off? We all had lines to learn and characteristics to portray and every single person did it amazingly. Everybody did their absolute best and never gave up when we had things to work around. We jumped over them hurdles like there was no tomorrow. On Tuesday things seemed a bit rocky but we pulled together and made history (kinda) It felt so great at the end of the performance tonight to know that
Sam Winder with a bonus blog...hurray for such things So What Did Happen to Grace Connor…? It has been a while since I wrote a blog but I was inspired by tonight’s performance of “Whatever Happened to Grace Connor” so much in fact that I threw my geography homework across the room and said “Time I wrote the blog…” Although this never actually happened it is partly true in that I should really be sat on the floor with a pen and pencil. So after that unorthodox start I would just like to say I very much enjoyed Crimson’s performance. First of all I sat down not knowing at all what to expect from the piece of theatre about to be performed – unless you count something happening to Grace Connor which is of course fairly obvious. As the play went on I felt sorry for Grace's family who of course miss Grace very much… and then comes the journalist Maggie (Sorry for not knowing your name) who first of all I must congratulate for doing such a good job. She managed to get to the family and ca

Responses 2

My mind is a tangle of muddled thoughts after this weekend but I’m going to try and make some sense out of them…so much is written about what constitutes performance…and the ambition when we began creating work with the Hepworth was to explore this area of debate. It feels like this weekend was spent in the worthwhile pursuit of developing our understanding of it and so much of this pursuit was concentrated on the relationship between the performers, the material and the audience. Nothing of our performances was conventional, all of them asked something of the audience…demanded that people look at performance and it’s parameters afresh and the results of this were more than gratifying. When I called the first performance we did in the gallery Responses it was a whim…I didn’t think about it too much…turns out both for version 1 and 2 there couldn’t have been better title…I’ve been fascinated all weekend by the response of the audience to our work…and frustrated I couldn’t hear/see all
Ellie with her thoughts about the launch weekend Hepworth hepworth hepworth... you happy little thing. Well, I say little but it cost £34 million to build... so maybe not little. It's safe to say it's a weekend to remember, one of those things to look back on and say "did I really have the honor to do that?" This weekend has been so so good in terms of what we've been given the opportunity to do and to perform at the new gallery was just feel good times, the stuff that we did - stuff being physical theatre is my favorite theatre when doing stuff like; Peeling, continuous images and pebbles on the beach... you can move, make and create any shapes you like as long as they look like theres so much effort in them whilst making them look effortless... but at the same time looking fresh and new everyday which really ... they were. But it feels mint... it really does, anybody who hasn't done continuous images needs to do, its one of the only things that stops me from
Thomas blogs about Saturday Just thought I'd offer my cheeky two cents about one of the latest happenings in the Yew Tree calendar…”what’s been happening?” I hear you ask…well it would only be the opening launch of The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield! Yew Tree have had the pleasure of being a part of such a wonderful event this weekend…being that this is the Saturday as I write this blog I'll keep the events from today in mind…we did a bit of Physical Theatre outside the building, inside "Black Cloud" to a very pleasing audience, and got asked to perform not once, but twice during the day, and everyone that was there loved what the company was doing. Afterwards towards the ending of the evening Yew Tree then went into the gallery itself…which is so beautiful now that it is open to the public, who were in every single gallery, looking with amazement at all the sculptures and works of art that were on display…it was interesting to see every ones reactions…there we perfor

Saturday...

Saturday was a busy day even by my standards…it started as every Saturday morning should with a stop off at the garage to get breakfast – for once the pecan and maple syrup pastries were fresh and I tried to make this compensate for the fact that the coffee machine was out of order again…I say out of order they just didn’t have any cups…still the end result was the same…no coffee for Sarah… Then to Gold company…it was an important session as it launched the company’s work on Classics at Clarke Hall which promises to be a development of the wonderful Shakespeare festival of last year. I was impressed by the willingness of everybody to seize their bit of the work and also excited about the sheer range of things that are going to be on display…from Wordsworth to the Brothers Grimm, from Pride and Prejudice to Sherlock Holmes…the varied programme is going to be more than wonderful… At the end of the session I realized I hadn’t had time to eat the pastry…so I packed it in my bag thinking I
Alice writing about our rehearsal at the Hepworth on Thursday I was thinking about the Hepworth lots on Friday when I was trying to learn my lines for the launch; imagining the brilliantly written scenes and the galleries and the sculptures that are now in them. I hope I can manage to articulate what I was thinking at the time in this blog... Firstly, the fact that Yew Tree has been invited back again and again to do more work with the gallery is fantastic. We’re pretty good at taking things in our stride and taking on the next project quickly, it’s easy to forget the unique opportunities we’ve had over the past year (?) has it been that long? When we arrived on Thursday after checking in we were taken for a tour around the gallery by Sam, one of the curators, so we had a better understanding of the spaces we are going to be performing in next weekend. (This in itself was such a privilege – seeing sculptures and paintings in their new homes and brand new exhibitions not yet open to the

From the luckiest director in the world...

Who gets to spend time with the most glorious people doing the most wonderful things... I can't possibly top the blog written by the cast and I'll be honest I haven't got headspace to write something insightful and intelligent (finishing off the Hepworth scenes has taken over my brain) so I'l just say this... Friday nights performance made me the happiest person...rarely have I felt so fulfilled and in love with the world in general, as who couldn't love a world where such things are possible...events like that performance help me keep faith in the challenging reality we live in...so thank you team...I will never forget this weekend or you... (mainly because of the obscene amount of photo's kicking about) Revel in your achievements and enjoy your success...but only til your next session as the next set of challenges are just around the corner... Cheers team...
The Shooting Truth cast boys and girls...recorded on location in Kendal Alice: If I was to compare this blog to the one I wrote this time last year about my connections experience I’m sure it’d be very similar to what I’m about to write because nothings changed…but connections has been just as good as it always is. There have been new people and lots of challenges but I have new friends and I have learnt A LOT. ‘Shooting Truth’ was potentially my last connections but hurray for not getting into drama school because I can audition again next year (!!!) and hopefully be as inspired as I have been for the last 4 years. Much love Connections ☺ xxxxxx Amy: well this is my first connections experience and I have to say it has been better than I first initially thought, I have loved every minute of it, from helping with, “I draw this circle,” to performing, it has all been great. I have enjoyed working with different people to who I usually talk or work with. So here’s to next years connectio
Rhiann with her review of Blackout On the 27th April, I attended Yew Tree Youth Theatre’s night of two fantastically scripted stories pieced together with words which can only be; care, focus and understanding. The first 25 minutes of the evening was dedicated to Blackout’ by Davey Anderson which Sarah Osborne (the director of this piece) saw performed by another youth theatre last year. The cast who are known as Black Company at Yew Tree are: Charlotte Clayton, Mikey Wilby, Eleanor Moran, Alice Proctor, Danny Bell, James Loughlin, Joanna Nicks, Helen Butterfield, Danny Bell, Tom Milton, Rachel Johnson, Matthew Plumber, Demi Aspey, Jack Iredale, Natalie English, Ashley Brown, Dee West, Jessica Moore, Ed Hardy, Hannah Speke, Jess Hopwood, Alex Palmer, Aaron Darling and Tom McNulty. The whole story is inspired by a true story of a young offender, which makes this piece more heart breaking as you see the character’s life before your eyes. It is all based around a boy who has grown up in a

The Unsung Hero

This week has been crazy…so much so that I’m spending the entirety of today putting everything back together, my house, my bags, my files, my car…crazy…for some reason staging Dumb Waiter seemed to be more demanding than other performances – whether it was the nature of the plays, the amount of people involved, the venues or a combination of these things I’m not sure… I could write a great deal about the production and the things that delighted me about it…the more than impressive performances of Danny and Trev in creating such an intense atmosphere with such a challenging play…the ensemble magnificence of the Black Company in their performance of Blackout…there’s also a lot to be said about selling out all three shows one of which was seen by lots of people who hadn’t seen any of YTYT’s productions before this week…and I was delighted by the support of past YTYT members who came to see it and responded so positively… However, I’m actually going to write about something else…I’m going
A joint blog today as our guest blog... HEY. It’s Lucy and Emma from Gold Company with a joint effort of a blog about this week’s happenings. We do always enjoy a spot of theatre-watching so we absolutely seized the opportunity to see Dumbwaiter and Blackout on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Black Company are so tight as a group and they were a pleasure to watch. They performed Blackout with absolute focus and energy all three times. They coped with the heat and the change in parameters of the stage in The Hop and smashed it! There are only good things to say, really. Dumbwaiter was the first Pinter play that we’ve seen, and it was tippitytop. We both have our own theories and we don’t fully understand it all (Emma: twelve matches? What even…) but we thoroughly enjoyed each performance. It was punchiest on the final night, when we had a sneaky peek at the audience and saw some of them actually holding their breath! Brilliant from Mr DB and Trevvy, who we perhaps don’t know well enough