What's happening at YTYT

Thursday night was one of those evenings, which I approached with significant foreboding but I ended up feeling really very happy about. The Black Company were performing at the Pecha Kucha night at Leeds Met Student Union. For a description of what a Pecha Kucha presentation is you can refer to Hannah’s blog or simply google. Our presentation was about what the Black Company does artistically and philosophically. I’d written it and sorted the slides and then Danny, Dee and Tom had put in time preparing to deliver the actual presentation. The foreboding was mainly about the unknown, I’d never been to something like this and had no idea what to expect. This was compounded by not knowing whether what we’d prepared was appropriate and whether the speakers would get any support on account of most of the black company finding the floor really interesting every time I asked who was coming to watch. It appears my concerns were entirely unfounded. Firstly the sheer range in the styles of...

Jack Iredale with an insight into Black Company's current project... Right, so this is my....third blog, I think, but this is the first one about Black Company. Probably because I only just became part of it in the last month. And so far it’s been a great experience. Now, most of you reading this will know the piece we’re doing is called Blackout, but may not know what exactly it is. Without spoiling too much, let’s just say it’s a look at what happens when someone gets pushed too far. It’s a fantastic script, with a lot more to it than that, but to say anymore would ruin it. ‘sides, it’s not just the script that has to be good, it’s what you do with it. And what Black is doing with it is waaaaay better than good. It’s a piece that shows in physical theatre, less can be more, how the simplest things are sometimes the most effective. It’s a piece we’ve created as a group, so there’s a bit of everyone’s ideas in it, which makes it a piece that everyone can be proud of. There are sec...

Hannah with her take on Pech Kucha night I’m just going to tell you a little bit about the Pecha Kucha night at Leeds Met that Yew Tree was part of on Thursday night. I still don’t know how to say it because we were pronouncing it like its spelt, but then the people at Leeds Met were saying ‘pechacha’ or something. But anyway… Essentially in a pecha kucha performance, you have a powerpoint with 20 pictures and you have 20 seconds to explain each picture… which isn’t that much time, as many people found out. There were some really strange ones, like the man who got up to talk about pencils, which is a ridiculously random topic. My favourite ones were the girl who explained her 20 favourite books, because it’s given me some things to read, and the guy who gave us a tour of Mansfield, it looks like a lovely place to live. Ha. And it was very entertaining watching the people who had been picked from the audience attempting to explain a series of pictures they’d never seen before. And of co...

Today Yew Tree Youth Theatre did one of their bravest things yet…they performed in an alternative performance event at Wakefield Theatre brilliantly titled “Raised Curtain” no prizes for guessing I came up with the title…ha… It was brave in a number of ways…the main one was that it was impossible to rehearse in full…we could rehearse elements of it…sections…but as an entire thing that was impossible. It was brave because a lot of it was improvised, it was brave because rather than repeat the same thing twice for the two shows we decided to do entirely different scenes in each…and it was brave because at no point did we use a stage for our performances but explored site specific work. The rewards for being brave were many and wonderful to behold. But in order to reap them...we had to endure some awkward moments. In the first performance, there were uncertainties, uncomfortable pauses…times when performers really weren’t sure what to do…there were obviously some brilliant moments too...

And on to blogs written today...this one by Mel... So... Gold Company all arrived at the Wakefield Theatre Royal by 11am this morning, giving us under 4 hours to prepare, eat, get dressed and know where to be. When 3pm came, everyone was in position and ready to start. It was absolutely, one of the scariest performances of my life. You were so close to the audience and anyone could just decide to pipe up at any point. But at the same time, it’s such a pleasure to be involved in such a rare and unique performance. After the afternoon performance had taken place, there was just half an hour before we had to set up for the 5pm show. As well as Yew Tree having 3 separate performances in 3 different locations of the theatre, there was also a maze made up of paper and lights that everybody got involved in (and it was soo much fun!) as well as a group of performance artists called ARCO who also made everybody smile with their cover of “Singing in the Rain.” Everybody’s feedback after both sho...

I wrote this last night (Saturday) ...definitely going to be blogging about Raised curtain in addition to this... Over the last few weeks Yew Tree has been doing a significant amount of welcoming…Black Company has welcomed a good strong amount of new actors who willingly accepted the challenge of an audition with enthusiasm and ability. As a result we have eight new members of the Black Company, which is a delightful. But Black company is not the only place that newness has been happening…we had two new members at Gold this morning…Ruby, Sapphire and Red have picked up about 10 between them over the last couple of weeks and Orange…our newest group that started in October with 6 members reached the heady heights of 16 this week…go onnn the movement and tour de force that is Yew Tree The advantage of new members is we get a fresh perspective on things, all the stuff we take for granted, the negativity and barriers we unthinkingly absorb on small and large scales are thrown into sharp f...

J D sent me this yesterday...enjoy As always, Gold company has been a pleasure. After the obvious downer that comes with ending a connections play (even for just a few weeks) returning to a normal Saturday with Yew Tree should seem very strange- but today it hasn't. "Raised Curtain" is an amazing event to be a part of, something that I have never done before. It is just brilliant. Today was (pretty much) the last rehearsal before we take it to the public tomorrow- and I cannot wait. They are in for such a hilarious experience. Anyway, today saw the arrival of two new members- Beth and Jack, who are both awesome. The day started off as normal with some games, and (again, as normal) they were awesome. Good old (well....fairly new actually) "Ninja Warrior" was followed by "Cat & Mouse" (my favourite) and "Virtual Playground" (beautiful). We then started rehearsing our own sketches for the event. Each group was given something to improve abou...

Mirv wrote a blog about yesterdays rehearsal Ok so this is my first post, and I can’t wait to tell you all my thoughts and views of things. So yesterday Gold company had a few warm up games and a quick run through our short performances for Raised Curtain, before we set off from Thornes Park. The journey to the Theatre Royal in Wakefield was just sensational. It was a perfect time to talk and socialise with everyone whilst walking. The breeze and the spring scent just made things that much better and everyone couldn’t wait to see what was up ahead. When at the theatre we met Rhiannon she was just amazing and toured us around the Theatre. The first place we were in was the stage itself, Inci performed her piece. This was the first time we had seen the script performed and because it was on the stage it was a brilliant moment for us to feel like an audience watching the real performance. Our attention snapped at Ash as he constantly interrupted Inci, it was like watching a tennis ball b...

Ellie with some thoughts on "Raised Curtain" So Yew Tree went to the theatre yesterday (Gold Company) and it really opened my eyes as to how much we presume things are going to be normal, and that in fact everything is done for us when we go to a venue such as the theatre - some people would say that is expected as that's what you pay for. Those kind of people are going to get a bit of a shock when they watch, "Raised Curtain." you don't start where you normally start, you don't sit in a theatre like you usually, typically do. And not everything goes "normally" I am absolutely intrigued to see people's reactions when people like Ash Brown start chipping up with an argument and making a fuss... It's interesting isn't it... how you can turn something so upside down... I wonder what the audience will think....

At 11.30 sharp the Gold Company set off to the theatre from Thornes Park, there are 32 of us…a cast of 30 plus me and Danny…it’s quite the sight to see, so many young people, lots of whom are dressed in Yew Tree hoodies…both black and purple. We stroll through the park in more sunshine than I’ve seen for a while. We are already attracting attention…a 2 year old, only just walking, smiles and giggles at us and a group of 11 year olds insist we say hello. The mood is light, we’re normally holed up in the drama studio at this time of the day to be out and about on a Saturday afternoon is a rare and welcome pleasure. Lucy’s mood isn’t so much light as ecstatic I wonder how she’s going to make it to the X factor tour without spontaneously combusting. After the park comes the back streets of Wakefield until we hit Westgate. I observe, amused the curious looks of passers by both on foot and in cars…some look vaguely threatened by this group of young people, others intrigued. I want to be ...

Tom Osborne blogged about the two YTYT sessions he attended this week...maybe the youngest guest blogger yet? Sooooooooooo, my first blog, and for that matter, Orange’s first blog. This week we played: Captain Beaky, (which I won, naturally) Clap and Ball and Stop and Go. The last two were to get us focused cos yer know we’re kids, we’re crazy. However the best bit was the creative task. We got 3 frozen positions and had to make a 10 minute play out of them. We had an office, a catastrophe and a happy ending. I really enjoyed this because you didn’t have any restriction on what you could do in your play. I also liked watching the other group to see how they interpreted their freeze frames. But, Orange wasn’t the only brilliant session I had this week; I also had Monday night, which is always a joy. Being Sapphire we adore absurdist theatre, so when Sarah gave us an everyday setting (a supermarket) and an every day starting line (what on earth do you think your doing?) everyone turned ...

Aayushi sent me this and it's lovely... After three long weeks without Yew Tree, this weekend was exactly what I needed. It kicked off with Shooting Truth on Friday, followed by Gold company on a Saturday morning and then bag packing in ASDA with Gemma & co. Despite arriving accidentally late and being ushered in quickly, the show exceeded the high expectations I'd had for it and left me on the edge of my seat, very close to tears at the end - this is not an exaggeration. In a way, it was weird seeing Shooting Truth with the ensemble piece especially, when I can still remember Sarah telling us of a vision she'd had relating to the ensemble. It was executed really well and definitely set the scene perfectly for the rest of the performance. The play itself was completely different to the Christmas show that Gold company did but it still worked really well. After having watched it, I am so excited for Raised Curtain. Another thing I loved about it was the music - somebody ...

Always a little difficult to know where to start after a week like this one…every connections is special and every one has it’s own identity…so I’m going to start by identifying what made this particular one special... Shooting Truth is the first connections for a while where there’s been no double casting…instead we made something new…by making “I draw this Circle,” we became the proud owners of something no other participant in connections had…and in so doing we created something beautifully powerful…something I simply won’t forget…so in a way this years connections is special before we even get to the actual text bestowed on us by the National. However undeniably the script itself added to the identity of the project, particularly in the way it challenged us all, technically, emotionally and intellectually. To pull it off with any kind of quality all of us had to dig deep…face our own fears and deal with the “demons within.” No short cuts for the cast of Shooting Truth in terms o...

Hurray for Cassidy's Mum Nicky being our first parent blogger... Not really a ‘blog’ but really wanted to say to you all what a fabulous evening we had at Shooting Truth – the 400 mile round trip was so worth it – and as somebody on the outside of YTYT (well hovering round the periphery) it so evident how much each of your individuality goes into creating such a complete togetherness. And this is true of all, not just those of you on stage bringing to life the printed words, but the background support – some brilliant lighting, excellent music and clear direction that made it a whole. I get a constant message that Yew Tree is a warm and comfortable second family and each time we get our small chance to be voyeurs of this when you present to your public the truth of this is demonstrated. Shooting Truth was amazing...and so are you all, be proud –as we are to have had the opportunity to share in your prowess through the window of your performance. Thank you.

Chloe...Amy's sister kindly wrote this for us I went to see the show on the opening night and I thought it was really good. The opening of the show was cleverly put together and worked really well. I liked how the two stories combined with each other to create an interesting play. I especially liked the ending part of Freya’s story, I liked the way everyone came together to create a well. I think it helped people at the end when everyone looked forward because it made us reflect on the story. Overall I thought it was a very good, clear playand I look forward to seeing the next one.

Vienna from Crimson sent me this review within hours of watching the matinee performance I’ve just been to see: Shooting Truth by Molly Davies.... as performed by Yew Tree youth theatre. I was absolutely shocked and delighted at what amazing, young talent there was. I obviously new that it would be good as there have been previous friends of mine saying it would be and also I’ve seen the previews on YouTube, but it was something else. To say that the actors started as young as 15 and only have been doing this play a few months, it was tremendous. The confidence and characters were very well felt and I connected with every one of the characters. It is a very well-written play but I believe if performed by any other youth theatre group it would have been no where near the standard of this afternoon’s performance. There was a small introduction (you will have too forgive my ignorance as I don’t know the technical name) performance involving different members of the cast, they all interact...