Who needs a half term?!

There has been a lot going on at Yew Tree Youth Theatre despite the week having holiday status.  It’s hectic and a little overwhelming but it’s also brilliant.  There are many plans afoot for, “Reprise,” our show with West Yorkshire Dance Theatre and this week much progress was made.  For a start we finished staging, “Giselle.”  I’m really excited about this piece as the performers, all dancers at the WYTDC, are putting there all into it.  It has a beautiful gothic feel and we’re being able to push the physical aspect of theatre to tell this classic ballet story in a very different way to how it’s usually done…it also has a great soundtrack.  We also finished staging, “The A to Z of Shakespeare,” in Gold Company…another performance that will be part of “Reprise.”  I’m enjoying watching the actors develop confidence in the very direct style of performance this script demands, it needs them to be bold and brave and they are showing more of this every week.  As a final, “Reprise,” story and as a next chapter to last weeks blog, the Black Company started working on their piece for the show and things are finally coming together nicely.

Youth Music met for a day of rehearsal in anticipation of the premier of their musical, “Something Special,” later this month.  I keep doing a double take at the cast who have grown in maturity, size and brilliance over the course of the project.  They have travelled so far and the performance should be a real celebration of this.

In addition to this a group of YTYT members started working on a new play, “The Difficult Choice,” that is to be performed at Brighouse School at the end of June.  It’s a piece of theatre in education that aims to get the audience, a year group of year 12’s thinking about their responsibilities as members of a community.  I was really impressed with the read through and I am looking forward to see it come to life. 

At the other end of the spectrum YTYT members volunteered at creative workshops for very little people this week.  I think some of them were reasonably surprised at how different things are when you have a group of under 5’s but as you would expect they rose to the challenge beautifully.  The performance where the children showed their parents what they had been up to was a lovely thing to be part of.

Next week looks even more ridiculous as we start writing Christmas shows and stage Open Mic Night 10 so I’ve spent the day plotting planning and preparing in the hope of it being just as good as last week.  I’ll let you know whether that’s been the cast same time next week!