The joys of a day trip!

This week I had the privilege of spending a day at Arts Ed, one of the set of elite drama schools in London.  I went as the guest of the very lovely head of music there who I often work with during the summer and I was welcomed wonderfully by every member of staff and every student I met.

My life with Yew Tree and my family is so very full and rich but I never want to get to the point where I don’t spend some time looking out of Wakefield to what else is going on.  Equally it’s important to spend some time out of Yew Tree to see the practice of others, the last thing I want is for us to become insular.  My trip to London this week was part of this desire to keep developing new ideas and seek new inspiration.

There were definitely both ideas and inspiration at Arts Ed in abundance.  During my day there I watched acting classes, song and dance classes, rehearsals for final productions, acting for TV classes and voice classes.  I saw students willing…no eager to look at the tiniest details in their movement, speech, thinking, expression and responsivity to work towards mastering the craft of performance.  I saw teachers passionate about guiding their students to achieve their potential.  The students were hungry for any bit of information they could get on how to better their performance and happy to repeat things over and over again until it worked.  There was a real sense of them seeking perfection and having a clear understanding of the amount of graft it takes to get there.

It was great to see so much of what we teach in Yew Tree embedded in the training I observed.  Equally it was affirming to think that we are giving developing actors a great foundation that will stand them in good stead once they get into training at a place like Arts Ed.  Which leads to the big question what are they looking for in auditions?  How do you get in, in the first place?  I spoke to the head of acting of the Musical Theatre course and she summed it up as, “We’re looking for people who are awake, alert and ready to play and be something other than themselves.”  That I suppose is what is so difficult about the audition process…that the things institutions are looking for are so elusive, so hard to make sure they’re in place.

I left Chiswick with my head full of renewed ambition to keep working on the detail of creating work and to keep offering opportunities for youth theatre member to develop and refine their skills across the board.  I also left with the security of knowing that we’re getting it right at Yew Tree and that felt great…also I got a new tongue twister for my repertoire…all in all a day spent well!