The loveliness that never stops...

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At Yew Tree Youth Theatre we are very good at celebrating our successes…we celebrate together at the time of success and then capitalize on the happy with a plethora of photographs, feedback, congratulations, praise and games sessions.  At times we may get the impression that every project is one continual easy ride from conception to performance…obviously this isn’t always the case and I thought it might be interesting to give you an insight into when things are a little trickier.

We’re having a little bit of a creative wrangle at YTYT – specifically at Sapphire Company…the challenge we are trying to meet is to create a performance that shows what YTYT is about and that can be performed in a place where there will be a lot of other things going on.  It has to be engaging, physical, about creativity and last about 10 minutes.  It turns out it’s harder to meet this challenge than we first thought. We have a starting point for content and some artistic ideas about how to stage it and we’re slowly piecing it together but at the moment its at that point where it doesn’t feel quite right – it’s a bit creaky and it’s hard to see how it’s going to look when it’s finished. 

A more accurate description would be that it’s at the point where we as a company have to have a bit of faith in themselves and each other and also in the unpredictable nature of making theatre.  It’s a strange reality that sometimes productions fall into place from the outset and others (of which this is definitely one) grow slowly, layer by layer, until eventually they become something that as a company we want to share.  I’m looking forward to that happening over the next four weeks.

In contrast to the wrangling at Sapphire, this week at Black Company we had a joyous evening playing all the games we don’t usually have time for as we celebrated a brilliant set of Beauty and the Beast performances.  It was the happiest of evenings as welcomed people back who had been taking a break from YTYT, welcomed new people to the group and reveled in the marvelous company of the BB cast.

It’s the richest experience to have the privilege of immersed in youth theatre when I get to enjoy both the start and end of projects in the same week…to be both creating and celebrating…and obviously Black and Sapphire are only two of the companies I work with…this week I also got to prepare Robin Hood for a performance next week with Robin Hood, I cast 2 cross company plays ready to go into rehearsal and put the finishing touches to Plinth – the Gold Company performance we’ll be sharing at The Hepworth next week…the loveliness never stops…



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