Alice blogs about being on tour with Yew Tree Arts
For the past two weeks Yew Tree Arts have been touring 'Yearbook' around high schools in Wakefield to year 7's.
It has been my first experience of working solely as a touring actor and having no other jobs or responsibilities - not even youth theatre lines to learn I have really enjoyed it so far (which is lucky being that I start drama school soon...could have been awks...)
It is however, absolutely exhausting; on Tuesday I was up at 5.30 and that was absolutelyhideous.com. But when you look back at how many young people you've come into contact with that day and how many insightful answers or 'liked and learnts' there were from the kids who didn't put there hands up for the rest of the session it's completely worth it. It's also really easy to enjoy work when you absolutely value what you're being paid to do.
...which leads me nicely onto what Yearbook is actually about. It is an hours workshop commissioned by Spectrum that begins with a 15 minute play about 4 characters who are about to leave high school. They chat about their time there and their plans for the future. The specific reason Spectrum asked us to do this was to encourage young people to make positive decisions by having an awareness of risk taking and the ability to be resilient. I keep thinking, after days of performing to up to 240 year 7s, that I wish someone had done this for me and my year group - it'd be fascinating to see how people differed. But of course that's what makes proving projects like this are successful so hard - there's no way to compare.
I didn't enjoy school very much and I think one of the reasons was that I felt different to everyone else but didn't want to do what 'everyone else was doing'. Even when I was empowered with the 'do what you want to do not what you're friends are doing' mindset and the confidence to do just that I couldn't help but worry there was something I was missing.
I reckon yearbook would have helped address this worry that still bothers me now. I am certain that we've set the ball rolling in lots of young peoples heads thinking about being resilient enough. But it will only work if a culture is established where it doesn't take a special person to follow the crowd. It's human instinct to fit in and seek acceptance but if we can keep encouraging individual decision making and rewarding the bravery to say no, not yet. Hopefully future years 11s will be more resilient, individual, less reluctant young people.
For the past two weeks Yew Tree Arts have been touring 'Yearbook' around high schools in Wakefield to year 7's.
It has been my first experience of working solely as a touring actor and having no other jobs or responsibilities - not even youth theatre lines to learn I have really enjoyed it so far (which is lucky being that I start drama school soon...could have been awks...)
It is however, absolutely exhausting; on Tuesday I was up at 5.30 and that was absolutelyhideous.com. But when you look back at how many young people you've come into contact with that day and how many insightful answers or 'liked and learnts' there were from the kids who didn't put there hands up for the rest of the session it's completely worth it. It's also really easy to enjoy work when you absolutely value what you're being paid to do.
...which leads me nicely onto what Yearbook is actually about. It is an hours workshop commissioned by Spectrum that begins with a 15 minute play about 4 characters who are about to leave high school. They chat about their time there and their plans for the future. The specific reason Spectrum asked us to do this was to encourage young people to make positive decisions by having an awareness of risk taking and the ability to be resilient. I keep thinking, after days of performing to up to 240 year 7s, that I wish someone had done this for me and my year group - it'd be fascinating to see how people differed. But of course that's what makes proving projects like this are successful so hard - there's no way to compare.
I didn't enjoy school very much and I think one of the reasons was that I felt different to everyone else but didn't want to do what 'everyone else was doing'. Even when I was empowered with the 'do what you want to do not what you're friends are doing' mindset and the confidence to do just that I couldn't help but worry there was something I was missing.
I reckon yearbook would have helped address this worry that still bothers me now. I am certain that we've set the ball rolling in lots of young peoples heads thinking about being resilient enough. But it will only work if a culture is established where it doesn't take a special person to follow the crowd. It's human instinct to fit in and seek acceptance but if we can keep encouraging individual decision making and rewarding the bravery to say no, not yet. Hopefully future years 11s will be more resilient, individual, less reluctant young people.
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