What's happening at YTYT

There’s a moment just before someone speaks or takes action which holds a million possibilities.   It’s the moment where the speaker takes in what they’ve just been told, or seen, or realised.   In that moment discoveries and decisions are made…the future shifts for that person a shift that can be slight, life changing or anywhere on the spectrum in between.   Information triggers thoughts and feelings…ricochets between head and heart and in some way everything that has brought that person to that moment has an impact on how it is received and consequently what is provoked, awakened, soothed, sorted, exposed, affirmed, lost. In that moment a response is formed and delivered through what we say, do or show through our bodies and faces and then the whole thing begins again for the next person who speaks or takes action.   This is happening all the time for everyone almost continually… Ignore this moment for your character in theatre and your production becomes steril

Hello, Hannah from Sapphire here! Sarah asked me to blog this week, probably because I sent her an extremely excited message about costume and knowing lines and happiness and just the amazingness that is Rumplestiltskin. Which is our play! Those of you who read this blog often will know that by now, and well, to those of who visiting this blog for the first time... WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! You've been missing out! But, yay, you're here now! So, this week at Sapphire, it was our first rehearsal officially off script. You wouldn't believe the faces of us who were so worked up and nervous about this... Like babies without our security blankets! But working without our faces buried a thousand miles into our scripts really helped us to think more deeply about the staging of our performance, concentrate on our space awareness, and the whole gestures and expression dimension to our play. Okay, so a couple of sessions ago I was a terrible person and missed two sessions for a lit

Hey blog readers, Amy T here blogging my Yew Tree filled day. Saturdays are becoming a more productive day for me which I'm quite pleased with. The morning starts with Gold company as always which is a treat, especially now we are joined by some lovely members of Orange company too to complete our Christmas show. Let me tell you, if these guys continue as they're doing so far, the next generation of Yew Tree Youth Theatre will be marvellous. Oh, and I won't forget to mention the sneak preview of a piece written entirely about hair. That wasn't something you see everyday. However, with Great Gatsby references, how could it ever be wrong? Very funny and very well thought about. Two ticks... A Christmas Carol! Run throughs really give you a chance to look at the whole play and the pace of everything which can be ridiculously helpful for rearranging and perfecting. We did that great also, if I do say so myself. What I love about double cast is that two people can brin

What a week…it hasn’t been without its challenges but I’m going to concentrate on some of the highlights and there are many of them to choose from… Due to trips to the National and Yearbook performances this has been my first full week of Yew Tree Youth Theatre and it was great to be able to get into rehearsals for the Christmas shows …all the performances are coming on a treat.   There is still a lot of work to be done but the annual festive magic is starting to happen and I am confident we shall have the usual joyous array of performances to delight our audiences with! It’s the additional stuff I’d like to concentrate on…starting with An Evening of Enlightenment.   Wednesday found the Writers of YTYT and a selection of performers in very cold Orangery grounds putting together our element of this performance event.   I have to admit it felt like a step too far on what had already been a long, taxing day.   That was until I met Stems !   The pleasure of watching a piece of

The authorship of this one is explained in the blog! With the absolute epicness of the connections auditions, only a blog with the the magical power of three is good enough to describe it. So here I am, Amy (paragraph 1) with my trusty friends Sam (paragraph 3) and Shelbie (paragraph 2) to explain it to you. Our evening began with us arriving and heading to a little room upstairs where we ran through our auditions in groups, for most of us, the first time we'd had chance to put it together. It was an enjoyable challenge to hear Leah over the noise of everyone else. Everyone was incredibly supportive of each other, despite some of us trying for the same part.  After we had spent some time rehearsing in the tiniest room we made our way down stairs to a much bigger room where we were still rehearing. At this point I was filled with nerves as I guess most of us were! On the bright side seeing everyone's reaction to me and Merv asking if they had a teddy made me for

 Bobbie took the title of the Blog literally and has blogged about her week at YTYT! It’s Saturday night and it’s the end of a glorious week at Yew Tree! The people who I got to spend this week with are beyond perfect and I love them all dearly! I’m going to kick this off with last Sunday (because technically it’s Saturday and my week in Yew Tree still counts last Sunday). Last Sunday we went bowling. When I say ‘we’, I mean Tom O, Amy W, Sam W, Amy O, Libby, Shelbie, Daisy, Courtney & Grace, and it was beyond any variation of ‘fun’ you could ever come up with. We went on the Bumper Cars too and I’ve never laughed so much in my life! (Quick tip: Never let Tom Osborne drive the Bumper Car…he’ll say he’s got it when he SO hasn’t!) On to Wednesday, when it was the final rehearsal for the Fire and Light Festival and, let me tell you, everything was great! The rehearsal was so much fun! I’m going to skip straight to Friday (but I’ll come back to Thursday because…Black.) T

 Georgia blogged about the auditions yesterday... Connections auditions today! Saturdays can only get better from here on out! Yew treers showed just how close they are today when we were preparing for our auditions everyone was wishing each other luck, hoping everyone the best! We went from Elizabeth and Cecily's fabulous posh accents to A and B's (very comedic) brilliant "audition piece"! Everyone exceeded what is expected for an audition and that makes me so proud to belong to a group of people who are so exceptionally brilliant!

Sam Winder blogs on  Sapphire’s Christmas Show Now, I don’t know if you watch the 10 o’clock news or anything, but if so, you might have heard that Sapphire are doing Rumplestiltskin as our Christmas play this year. It is what one might call terribly exciting phenomena. So, I have decided to make that the topic of my blog as a way to spread the word for those of you without an interest in current news. It surprised me throughout the developmental stages of the play the amount of people haven’t heard the story of Rumplstiltskin. Speaking to people at school, they generally had little idea of the plot... Perhaps it is because Disney never got round to it? Maybe. So, from that perspective it has been a joy to play around with: a few extra characters here and there; an abundance of creeping, springing and frolicking; an awful lot of fun.   The ridiculousness of ‘Rumplestiltskin’ has been a challenge for us all to rise to. Letting go of ourselves enough to sufficiently po

Tiff Milner...writer extraordinaire! At some point, a scary man tried to get over the gate into the grounds. The most beautiful hostess I’ve ever seen got a boot to the face during a mosh pit. It was so cold I thought my fingers would fall off. And through it all, Yew Tree was nothing short of extraordinary. So, for those who don’t know, yesterday the Yew Tree writers pulled off a superhero-style team-up with a group of wonderfully talented Gold and Black YT actors for a spot of spoken word poetry and physical theatre at A Night of Fire and Enlightenment at the Orangery. There was live music, there was frolicking, there was pie and peas and a good night had by all but even more warming than the copious amount of tea provided, it was yet another example of Yew Tree awesomeness. And it wasn’t only because I was there. Although that was one reason. Lit charmingly by firelight, the writers performed first, accompanied by the fabulous Stems (hurry, go find them on F

Frankie blogged about Crimson last week Today was great. Adding dance into the drama was a really nice change and seeing everyone cooperating trying to get it right over and over again was really nice to see. Even though the dance doesn't quite fit with the song due to the number of beats we managed to make it work. Molly and Joe are amazing as beauty and the beast they have such chemistry and work really well together. Gemma Whelan you are amazing I don't know how you have the patience to juggle more than one show when we get stressed over getting one scene right in the whole show. You teach us so much every week and the play is coming together all because of you! This Christmas at yew tree is going to be immense as always, I can't wait to see the other shows.

A last minute blog from Joe from Crimson to finish off our bumper crop of blogs! It's not long until the christmas performances, and beauty and the beast rehearsals are well under way. We know its not long to go when Gemma has to skip best and worst to get more rehearsal time! We have been through the script a few times and it is coming together really well. Each week somone is coming in with a new costume, lines are being learnt, lifts and dances are coming along.. I can't wait! I am playing the part of the beast and I am loving it. This part is very different to what I ave done in the past and I am finding it really difficult. His charcteristics are very different from my own however it has been great to come out of my comfort zone and try something new. Hopefully I can pull it off by christmas! Everyone in the group is creating some amazing characters and they are adapting to their role really well. It is fantastic to rehearse with all these lovely people. Ge

Taking a break from all things YTYT is not something I care for and so it doesn’t happen very often, however this weekend I did just that.   Needless to say I missed you all lots and the fantastic blogs from Crimson have underlined that greatly but I have to say I had a brilliant couple of days. Firstly I went to the Directors weekend for Connections –it was marvellous   I met up with old acquaintances that I have at some time worked or trained with, I met new acquaintances and discovered connections with them and I discussed our play which is going to be a wonderful challenge.   As an added bonus I’ve brought back a whole bag of physical and vocal exercises and techniques to enrich our productions and enhance our skills.   It was great to have some time to reflect on what we do and how we do it and think about what else we can do to ensure our work is as inspiring and brilliant as possible.   What struck me throughout the weekend was the generosity and openness with which pract

And Merv offers the fourth guest blog this week! It's incredibly impressive how a certain person might not seem like the obvious choice for a certain role, however when you give it a chance they bring something intelligently new to the character. A whole new aspect to how you see that character, in a new shade of dark and light. Crimson company highlight all these magnificent features and much more which make it a, show must see. Beauty and the beast is well known, but never has it been so refreshing to watch Crimson company perform it in their own style and genre of acting! It gives me shivers (very rare) and I can truly say it will blow your mind's away. I know this of course only because I had been invited to help co- choreograph a physical movement scene for Beauty and Beast. And I dont want to ruin any surprises, So I wont say anymore about that. Except that they have worked so hard, and boy did it pay off because it looks spectacular! It will make you cry,

A blog from Jack! So it’s coming up to Christmas time. And that can only mean one thing. Yew Tree Christmas shows. Now, normally, I’d be writing about performing something, but this time, it’s a look at the other side of the stage. Or something. Metaphors aren’t my strong point. Anyways, point is, instead of being in a show, this is about putting one together. Specifically crimson companies’ beauty and the beast. And honestly, so far it’s brilliant. There is a lot to be said for taking risks, but crimson company are rising to the challenge fantastically. I’ve not been there since the beginning of the process, this is true, but every single member has grown into the roles they portray. The risks come into adding physical theatre into the piece, something that can seem quite daunting if you haven’t done it before, especially if you are not sure how it looks. However, after only a few hours spent on it, the sequence is already coming on a treat. No one has backed down from i

Molly from Crimson has also blogged... Rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast are going very well. Lines are being learnt, staging is being constructed, costumes are being created, and dances are being produced. All with a barrel of laughs along the way. To say where we are with the limited time until the performance, it seems like we have the space to work on our characters and stretch; bringing them to life even more. This is beneficent for us because we are all gaining skills throughout the whole process that we could reapply as actors or actresses in the future. Each character looks to be made entirely for the person playing it. This is to a certain extent because Gemma will have clearly thought long and hard over the casting, but also because people have incredibly adapted and all the advice and help that has been given to them has been taken on board and enhanced characters, making them much stronger. Beauty and the Beast is probably the most technically and physi

It's a happy day when Gemma's written a blog and today is one of those days... So we are on the home straight to the Christmas shows, and at some points between now and the 11th December it’s going to be an uphill sprint so I thought now be a good time to pipe up before I’m lost in a mad flurry of "sweet Jesus we're running out time.” and I’m too breathless from piggy backing some folk up the hard work hill (although the youth theatre I get to work with often sprint past me and I just grab on to their coattails and enjoy the ride) Just so you know what I’m on with, at present the plates that are spinning around my head are an outdoor performance of Robin Hood with purple company, which is going to happen on the 30th of November amongst the frozen sprouts at Eastmoor community garden, they have this extraordinary amphitheatre nestled in their allotment. It’s amazing what gems you find when you adventure a little further. The performance is 30th November

This week was obviously all about Halloween at Nostell but our two guest bloggers have told you about that with such eloquence that I can look ahead to what’s in store for YTYT in my blog. The half term ahead of us is possibly the most exciting of the year…Christmas shows are just around the corner with all the joy and festivity they bring with them.   I think the Christmas show week is possibly my happiest of the year!   This year looks set to meet our usual high expectations – such a variety of genres, atmospheres and performances in the set of stories we’re preparing for our audiences.     In addition Connections 2013/14 is all about to kick off!   We have our script – “The Wardrobe,”   our first choice this year for the first time in 2 years!   It’s brilliant and I’m so excited about directing it.   We have a brand new assistant director, a production manager and a stage crew ready and of course a company of actors who as we speak are preparing for their audition on the 16