Mia's Leavers Blog

-

 I really didn’t think this day would come so soon. I was ready to accept another gap year but then I got a recall and then I got a place?! Like what?? I’m leaving yew tree a completely different person to who I started as. A person that young me would be so amazed and proud of now. I wasn’t a very confident person, but there were certain shows that I performed in that definitely coaxed me out of my shell. 

 

The first being, Connections 2018 Ceasefire Babies. What an experience? My first ever connections and this being the show that Yew Tree Youth Theatre got to take down to London to perform at the National Theatre Connections Festival. It really was an experience I’ll next forget, getting to perform in a working theatre with such a brilliant team around us. I know that the cast will remember me being the most touristy Brit possible, pictures of everything and I know it drove you all mad (I can feel you all rolling your eyes) but I just wanted to remember every tiny detail of such a great experience! 

 

The second show was Chaos, one of my favourites that I would love to perform again. The story of this show was truly beautiful but what was even more beautiful was the stage images that Sarah created by directing us. Funnily enough the monologue that I got into East 15 with was from Chaos so this show just keeps giving. Typically we use Stanislavsky techniques but for one scene I was struggling to get the right emotion into it and this is where Helena stepped in and suggested trying Meisner. So casually I ran up and down the car park around 5-10 times and then ran into my scene. And it worked! From this I learnt that sometimes I have to put myself in the same physical state of my character in order to match their mental state. 

 

I think I may have been the only person to nearly kill Sarah several times. First when we played hunger games, a rugby tackle when I went for the flag then I caught her. I will never stop being sorry for that, that game really is a hazard in a small room. Then I think I almost gave her heart failure from stress in my lamda lessons, time management has never been my strongest asset and Sarah really saw this when we were cramming in a monologue a week before my exam. Again I’m sorry. In true Mia style I am indeed writing this a week before the deadline and sending it in, the night of. 

 

I gained such a great circle of friends at Yew Tree. First off there was Ellie who I met through the Laerlingan performance and we realised we worked great together and had a really strong bond from then. I mean it must be a good bond because we are living together in London. Thank you for being my open mic partner, I wouldn’t want to sing Wicked duets with anyone else! And not to forget Maddie, Lara and Chloe who all made the experience so much more like home. Oh and Dec who would sit and wait an hour with me in Leeds train station for my connecting train which I’m very thankful for because Leeds train station is a scary place at night. 

 

Now to say a massive thank you to Sarah. You really believed in me and pushed me when I didn’t think I could go any further. I’m just so grateful for all the experience and knowledge you have given me. I will now carry this with me to drama school. The best 5 years of my life. Yew Tree was my happy place, my sanctuary but now it’s onto new and exciting adventures. 

 

Thank you, Yew Tree, for everything. I won’t say goodbye because that’s too painful, Yew Tree will always be part of me, so I’ll see you later. Mia 

 

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