What's happening at YTYT

Friday the 26th of August and it’s raining…not only is it raining but the sky looks pretty set to carry on doing so for the rest of the day…we’d arranged to have a picnic to celebrate the drawing to a close of the Summer holidays and the success of our Nostell Performance “Duel.” Last year’s version had been a lovely event, glorious sunshine, a long relaxing afternoon and many a game of that’s out…This time however we are not so lucky and it had been touch and go throughout the morning as to whether I cancelled it. There are 20 or so YTYT members expected and I start to wonder if many of them will show as a result of the horrid weather however as is usually the case I needn’t have worried… By 1.30 despite the rain 20 youth theatre members had duly assembled and although admittedly there were varying degrees of enthusiasm emanating from the individuals present they had all been committed enough to turn up. Not only did they turn up but after we’d had a look around the house most o...

Our second guest blogger this week is Jack Iredale... So, we had a directing workshop on Thursday. It was enjoyable, but I came away with one major thought, that I’m probably going to wait a bit before I try it out. Granted, I was a bit better at it than I thought, which may have been because I was directing people I knew, I imagine if it were a new company, I would find it much harder, at least at my current level. Then again, that was covered but what we thought about in the beginning, what a director is and what they shouldn’t be, which essentially boils down to keep in control, have a good relationship with your company and know what you want to do, whether that’s everything in a piece, or just one simple idea, if you know what you want to do with it. This came in handy when we had to direct each other. The first round of directors had it the hardest, as they had to direct Pinter, not the easiest to do in a 20-30 minute time limit, but I think this worked as an effective ice ...

Tom Osborne blogs about his experience of the Summer at Yew Tree Well then my second blog and its all about the great time I’ve had at Yew Tree this summer. It started with a brilliant play in a day for youth theatre members aged 11 to 14 with Gemma. The play was King Arthur which is right up my street as I love swords and battles. To my delight I even got to have a fight with real swords against Chris.( I’m still not sure why they trusted me) You can see the photos of this day on the ytyt facebook page. However I’m lucky enough to have done a second play in a day again with Gemma this time doing, “Where the Wild Things Are,” with 7 – 11 year olds. Again I really enjoyed it because it’s nice to not always do long more complicated plays and do something a bit less tricky. I loved listening to the wonders of seven year old’s imagination. Another thing I noticed is how different people from Yew Tree look from less experienced actors. People like Chris Marsay already knew exactly w...

Jonathan Hopwood with his blog about the Physical Theatre day... It’s like maths. Physical Theatre is something that you can relax into, have both an internal journey and an external journey with and will, more often than not, come across interesting if not entertaining to an audience. There is always something very cathartic about physical theatre, it acts as some form of release and I think this is due to expressing what’s happening in your head physically and then having the opportunity to speak about it afterwards. The second part of the equation is Yew Tree. Yew Tree provides such an open, easy environment to create and experiment with physical theatre. Physical theatre is often quite challenging as it requires a lot of trust and contact and awareness; it sometimes needs people to come out of their comfort zones to meet the requirements of a task or exercise. However, at no point with Yew Tree, does anyone feel awkward or out of place. Everyone is so accepting and conscious ...

Some weeks it’s really obvious to me what I want the blog to be about and some weeks I have to just start writing and see what emerges…this is one of the second sort of weeks… I think the lack of a clear subject this week is because there have been too many nice things to choose from…the Pinter Workshop on Monday was an intellectual delight…11 actors trying to get their heads round the ambiguity of his scripts looking at what’s inferred, at communicating the subtext and at the challenge of portraying characters when so little is known about them from the text alone… Then I had the privilege of calling in for the last 90 minutes of the Play in a Day…12 youth theatre members aged 11- 14 years had spent the day exploring the legends of King Arthur and had in doing so created an utterly engaging piece of theatre. Under the famed creative eye of our one and only Gemma Whelan they had produced something with integrity and humour that was a joy to watch… Finally for the Summer Days ...

Charlotte blogged about the Pinter day... I chose to do the Pinter workshop because the way his work is regarded really intrigued me. Beforehand, the research gave me certain preconceptions which people had such as pauses and ambiguity. In fact, it's the ambiguity, yet specifics of stage direction that does it for me. The way nothing can be taken for granted. It has to have been the most inspiring workshop/session yet since as soon as I got home, I was reading reviews and information on Moonlight and other such works. Job well done !

A blog from Mel about the Shakespeare day... Doing the shakepeare day at clarke hall was a unique suprise and changed the day around to what we originally expected. we started off the day with a introduction, best and worst and a game of ninja warrior. we then got split into groups and were given the prologue to Henry the Fith to create an idea and compose an "epic" scene, then we got into new groups and moved on to Hamlet, for this we had to incorporate and focus on the tragedy within the scene. Last of all we got paired of and worked on a dualogue from Measure for Measure. We watched everyones performances and then all got together to end the day with what we had learned and the part we most enjoyed. i loved learning about new plays that i knew nothing about and working in different groups to normal GERTRUUDEEEEEEEEEE

It’s just after 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon and 18 youth theatre members are assembled at the gorgeous Clarke Hall, Wakefield exploring the plays of Shakespeare…we’ve already explored the epic nature of the language in the prologue of Henry the 5th – “Oh for a muse of fire…” etc, we’ve already had a go at creating action in the final scene of Hamlet, “The rest is silence…” and now we’re looking at character in Measure for Measure…”O! It is excellent
to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
to use it like a giant.” so we have 9 Angelos and 9 Isabellas and they’re all in different rooms in the house, battling it out to decide the fate of Claudio…they explore the text for about an hour – there’s pretty much a whole scene to do and so there’s a lot of words, character, intention, context and understanding to handle, so I’m giving them as much time as possible. At the end of about an hour we see each pair and almost immediately it hits me that the learning to be done in this obs...

A blog on our improvisation day... Hi everyone it's Aaron, been a while since i've written one of these but such an occasion had arisen this week that i couldn't possibly keep quiet about. The Improvisation day, otherwise known as 'last Tuesday', was possibly one of the most entertaining, fun and insightful ways to spend my time. I am a huge fan of improvisation, i love taking part, i love watching it but the best part of it all for me is taking a bold move with a line or a joke that you've made in your head that second and then hearing the response from those around you. Be it a laugh or a gasp. The best part of the day itself was seeing people taking those risks. Especially during the game worlds worst. A game that requires a person to think of the worlds worst thing to say or do in the given scenario. i loved watching people taking chances and being rewarded with the responses they deserved. it just goes to show that improvisation really isn't as ...

I have just got back from a brilliant week at Warwick University spent in the company of 11 excellent people. My task over the week was to teach them as much as I could about directing youth theatre and in doing my very best to achieve this I learnt so much myself… The learning came from a number of different strands of the course I was teaching…partly it was through reflecting on my own practice - by talking about what I do it allowed me to think about the things I take for granted…concerns about making sure that youth theatre is about balance, about journeys, about dialogue, about individuals and most importantly about a culture that has the creative and emotional wellbeing of all at it’s centre…making all that is implicit to Yew Tree explicit I was made aware of what my priorities as a Youth Theatre director are and need to be… Another source of learning came from watching the group over the week as they became a company through the games and techniques and reflection that we take ...

I asked for a blog this week that perhaps took a wider perspective as there hasn't been much activity and Ashleigh has written something very lovely in answer to that request... Hi team, this blog isn’t about a certain session I have attended recently but about my Yew Tree experience so far, maybe a little self indulgent but anyway… I have been a member of Yew Tree for over 3 years now, and I cannot put in to words how amazing it is. The people and experiences I’ve had have shaped me as a person and inspired me to act. All my life I have been picking up a hobby and dropping it within a year, acting has always been something I’ve enjoyed but without Yew Tree I know academic drama would have beaten my love for it out of me. My first Connections was what really improved my confidence, ‘The Heights’ was a fantastic opportunity for me and getting to perform at the West Yorkshire Playhouse was just wow! I learned so much in the rehearsal process and my love for acting grew. The most scar...

Mel blogged on her week at Nostell...and this is what she had to say... Well... Nostell has been the best week i've had in a long time! The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the Script "Duel" was a masterpiece, what better recipe could you ask for to create a brilliant show for over the 100 people that came to watch? All week had been a challenge, with the 10am starts, followed by the warm ups, games, best and worsts and getting on with rehearsals and then finishing at 4pm all week and somewhere in there having breaks filled with chat, poetry writing, sun bathing and the obvious THAT'S OUT! Learning lines and direction was difficult at times but everyone pulled through for the final performance, which we had amazing feedback for Nostell has been such a "feel-good" week for me, with me breaking my biggest boundaries with confidence and projection - go onnn me ( not to brag or anything) Soo proud of everyone though, it's been fab, going to miss all of y...

Lucy's Nostell Blog I am currently sat in the car en route to Bristol, listening to the Wicked soundtrack, and now writing a blog. It's quite sunny too which is nice. And I've just purchased one of THE most sensational drinks ever- a caramel Costa Lite. (Only 80 calories in that little cup of sunshine- fabulous) So, last week was Nostell week. Strictly speaking I shouldn't have been there, what with me only being 15... but I was and it was brilliant. What a way to kick off the summer holidays. On Monday, 'Duel' was just a script we'd been given not long before the start of the week. By Friday evening, despite having to move location a mere 6 hours before performance, it was a full play waiting to be performed to a surprisingly massive audience. What with it being my first Nostell I had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be hard work, but I didn't expect to feel as exhausted as I did every night ha. But despite the tiredness we pulled through everyda...