Posts

Youth Led Festival at The National Coal Mining Museum

-
On the 6 th   of July a special thing happened at the National Coal Mining Museum – The “Rock Hard Festival” – a celebration of young people’s artistic response to the miner’s strikes of 1984. Young people played, sang, acted, created visual art all inspired by the events of a year that sealed the fate of such an important industry to Yorkshire and the UK.     YTYT were one of the performers – they performed a brand-new piece that documented the input of the strike on the community, “Have You Heard the News.” The script was created out of the ideas and inspiration of the young people in the cast in response to the National Coal Mining Museum’s exhibition about the 1984 strikes.    Here are some responses of some of the young people who performed:   Throughout this performance I learned a lot about how life was back then and how if affected different people Amelia   As a member of the cast, I found that transferring the performance to a smaller space and overcoming the ambient noise aro
Post a Comment
Read more

Robin's Connections Blog

-
 Kiss / Marry / Push off a cliff was my second connections play that I have done with YTYT. As soon as I read it, I fell in love with the script. Although it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it drew me in with its pure weirdness and mystery. I was so intrigued as to how we would tackle many of the problems that were initially presented to us. After all, showing someone getting pushed off a cliff while inside of a sleeping bag in a youth theatre production isn’t a simple task. However, with the combined effort of an equally talented crew and cast, I believe we were able to do a pretty good job. I could ramble all day about how much I love characters as a whole. In truth, they are what drew me to connections in the first place. I love being able to delve into their motivations and fears in detail and develop a whole other being rather than myself. I remember there was one character that stood out to me in my first reading. I knew from the start that Marco would be a tricky character. Both
Post a Comment
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
Post a Comment
Read more

Fern's blog for 2023

-
  My Blog   Considering how much of a hectic year this has been for some, I think it is important to write down our thoughts and feelings. This is my first blog for Yew Tree Youth Theatre so I would first like to mention about in January I took my Grade 6 LAMDA exam and came out with a distinction! Hanging on my wall is my medal which I am so proud of with my two speeches I did. My first speech was To Be or not to Be monologue performed famously by Hamlet in Hamlet by Shakespeare, it was a challenge to work out what it meant so for anyone who doesn’t understand old English monologues there are plenty of old English translations that helped me answer my questions a lot. My second speech was Chaos where I described a scenario of a butterfly at the train station where I essentially had to decide what the dramatic effect was of the monologue.    Participating in To Write A Monster with Gold Company later in June was an interesting experience with such talented actors that I was so lucky to
Post a Comment
Read more

Emma's 2023 Blog

-
Image
  What a year. I’ve never actually written a blog for YTYT before, I’ve always been a little afraid - although I don’t know what of. Given that everyone at Yew Tree are the kindest people I’ve ever met. So here’s to my first ever YTYT blog! It’s a long one, the whole blog comes in at an outstanding 2522 words. So, TLDR: I love YTYT and everything related. I love every person at YTYT. Everything about it has a special place in my heart forever. Thank you Yewtree, thank you Gold company and especially thank you Sarah. ^There are some special messages to everyone in Gold Company at the bottom if you’d rather not have to read it all to get to them     When I was writing up a plan for the order of this blog, I had wanted to pick a highlight from 2023 and talk about it here. However upon reflection over my year, I honestly could not pick a highlight if you forced me to. Not because the year has been horrible, on the contrary. YTYT has been utterly fabulous this year. I’ve had my own personal
Post a Comment
Read more

Sam's Noda Theatre Summer School Blog

-
  NODA summer school has quickly become one of my favourite weeks of the year and I’m already looking forward to next year.   Arriving there was terrifying; I had all these worries about being in the right place and would I enjoy this. So seeing Sarah’s face at the entrance allowed a little ease to the worry, not all but some. All that worrying disappeared after I had met some amazing and friendly people at the bar and then our stage manager tutor Mark Shayle for an evening introduction. Knowing what to expect and what I had to look forward to helped increase the excitement over the anxiety. Everyone there was so lovely, welcoming and encouraging and I know I have made some life long friends.    The course was another type of amazing, I’ve learned so much in the space of the week, from the role of a stage manager to running a technical rehearsal and calling a show, and I know that there is plenty I can use in the future. To mix my week up even further, I took part in some of the evenin
Post a Comment
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
Post a Comment
Read more