-
Lottie's farewell blog...

Attending Yew Tree sessions has been an integral part of my life for quite some time now - minus my brief hiatus last year (but we’ll just pretend that didn’t happen) - so I can confidently say it’s going to be pretty weird without it. For some reason, it always seemed like university and leaving home was in the distant future, one of things that you know is going to happen at some point, but doesn’t seem like it’ll ever actually get here. And now it’s here. And quite honestly, I have no idea how that happened. The past 4 years or so at Yew Tree have been an absolute blur, filled with ridiculous sessions at Sapphire and slightly more serious ones at Black. I have so much to thank YT for, enough to probably write a book, but I’m going to keep this relatively short and sweet.
I think more than anything, I’m grateful that Yew Tree provided me with a place to go to completely escape academic chores; it constantly allowed me to be creative without the confines of a mark scheme that dictated what I could or couldn’t do. I’ll miss playing games and being carefree on a Thursday night, but I’ll also miss the ability to lose myself in a piece of work; to build something from scratch and finally feel that elation and pride at the end of a performance when you know all your hard work has paid off.
Thank you to Sarah for having confidence in my abilities even when I didn’t, for pushing me out of my comfort zone to make me the best I could be (I’d still like to object to being lifted though) and for generally helping me to retain some of my sanity during A Levels. Thanks to all the people I’ve spent the last few years with, I’ve made genuine friends for life and it wouldn’t have been the same without you all.
It turns out London is quite far away so I’m not sure when I’ll make it back next, but I’m also not sure who I’d be without YTYT in my life... So yeah, I’ll definitely see you all soon x

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chloe's Leavers Blog - finally :)

-
  Please excuse how this was written, I do a very silly drama school course, and I haven’t had to write more than my name in 9 months. I’m sat in my silly dorm bed writing me this on my DSA laptop (a win for the mentally ill girlies), realising how utterly bad my ability to Words has become. Anyway.. Leaving YTYT was one of the oddest experiences of my life, and yet, I don’t remember it at all. I’d spent the last few years, waving off some of my closest friends as they went on to conquer their dreams, in a tearful circle, yet all I have is a fuzzy memory and a video saved in an instagram highlight. I’d sell a kidney to try and bring back that experience, to do my final show unclouded by new medication and intrusive thoughts, but as that isn’t possible, I thought I’d finally write my leavers blog, even if it is a year late. I started Yew Tree in 2017, as a way to explore drama outside of the agonising GCSE setting, and across the years, it became a lifeline for me, providing confidence,
Read more

Arwen's Leavers blog

-
I made a start writing this leaver’s blog when I was on a bloody needed holiday over a month ago, on the glorious Isle of Islay in Scotland. I’m re-writing it now, because I think it was naff to be honest. And I’m not in the same mindset as I was then. Also I might have had a few too many drams of whisky whilst writing it there, so there’s that. A line I’ll keep from it however is: “How am I meant to do justice and summarise in my writing the enormity of an impact that Yewtree has had on me these last 5-ish years?” How can I articulate all the skills that I've learnt and developed? The experiences I’ve had? There’s so much, where and what do I start on? So I’ll do just that, and put some of the skills I’ve learnt into use: “You can’t be a creative, a critic, and an editor at the same time” But in fairness - I don’t think I could share and articulate all those things. And I’m not sure that I want to, they’re for me. I can’t put that expectation on myself. The past year I’ve felt as
Read more

Celebrating the past in the present...

-
  Next year Yew Tree Youth Theatre will be 30 years old.   We haven’t quite decided how we will celebrate - any suggestions would be gratefully received. No doubt there will be some nostalgic perambulating down memory lane and some haphazard but joyous celebrating of three decades of creativity we have shared.   Some variation of those two themes would feel fitting. This blog however is something different. This blog is a celebration of the present of those who attended YTYT in the past. Alumni, graduates, previous members – I can never seem to find the right term – but whatever word is chosen I know for sure they are part of the fabric of the youth theatre and I’m grateful to have known all of them, mainly because I have learnt so much from them.   I also can’t put a number on how many people have spent significant time with YTYT over the last 29 years.   I know we started with a group of 8 and now have about 80 members, I know at our peak just before COVID we had about 130 young pe
Read more