What's happening at YTYT

Despite the silly snow that disappeared as quickly as it arrived we had a 20 strong Gold company on Saturday morning workshopping both the genre of Melodrama and the practitioner Stanislavski.   The results were fascinating.   A lot is taken for granted in relation to these two aspects of theatrical history, there are too many generalisations and assumptions made.   However in our workshop on Saturday morning there were lots of questions asked and exploration embarked upon instead, always guaranteed to make me a happy director.   It’s always good when different elements of the youth theatre compliment each other and so I was more than pleased when these questions and explorations of the morning were prevalent in our National Connections rehearsal of that afternoon.   Our connections play “Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy,” by Jonathan Harvey is a tough play, it’s tough to direct and tough for actors and it’ll be tough for the audience to watch. ...

Rachel of Black Company is our guest blogger Being a part of Black Company is lovely, I'm used to only doing drama with people who are mainly 17, so to be in a group with a varied age range is a novel thing for me! its really nice to be working with people who aren't afraid to put there ideas out there, even if they might get knocked back.  I was pretty confident before i joined Yew Tree and I think its brought be out of my shell even more and made me more confident in my ideas that I have about things.   If im being honest I was dreading the new project when we were told it was going to be a physical theatre piece, mainly because of everything I'd done at school and college, but its really refreshing to be working and not having to worry about basing our acting on a practitioner and thinking about the stage values. So far I reckon everythings going swimmingly and I love what we have so far, so if anyone reading this has chance get yourselves down to the Hepworth on the ...

This week I’m going to blog about our blog and so to start with here’s a brief history… “This week at Yew Tree,” was started on the 27th March 2009 which means we’re just a couple of months off it’s 4 th birthday!   This in itself seems bizarre.   It certainly doesn’t seem like I’ve been writing a blog every week without fail for almost 4 years – that’s a total, including this one, of 199 blogs.   200 if you count this one.   Our first guest blogger all that time ago was Emily McGee, who at that time was the tender age of 14.   In total there have been 548 blogs so far and so that means by the time I post this one and this weeks guest blog that’ll hit the milestone of 550…impressive eh!?   However what I think is more impressive is that we have an average of about 150 hits each week and that’s after taking off a percentage for the silly spider bots that roam around the internet.   That, I reckon, is quite some following… I fir...

Danny Keane with a farewell blog as he goes off to pastures new... Sitting here, I’m trying to write a witty opening line, or a way of telling my story of yew tree, or about how being a member has changed my life in certain ways, but ultimately, I don’t have to because everyone reading this already knows the effect that it has on you, you already know the feeling.  Whether you have been there a decade or a day you cannot sit there and say that every second hasn’t been worth it. You learn new skills about your craft (more so than you do from an acting course at college or university), you gain confidence in yourself and your abilities, you find people who inspire you, people to look up to, you find new friends, you find a family. Yes that sounds really cheesy and a little bit soppy but there is a reason why people come back session after session, there is a reason why people like myself even after three years of university keep coming back and why even after moving far away we s...

I’ve been on holiday.   For the first time in two years I and my lovely family managed to steal away for a whole three days.   It was lovely for all sorts of reasons but the reason relevant to this blog took me significantly by surprise.   In short, while I was away, I had something of an epiphany. Remember last week I talked about “Rise of the Guardians” (if you don’t or you didn’t read it check out my last post.) Well, on of the distinct messages of the film was that each and every person needs to know what is at their centre.   The argument goes something like this – if you know what it is that powers you, that is the very heart of what you are and what you have to offer then not only can you use that to the upmost good but also you can understand your mistakes and learn to avoid them… As a result of my break away I am delighted to tell you that I know what is at my centre…really…it’s a revelation – it means I know where to invest what I h...

Jack Iredale is our guest blogger this week So begins a new year and with it new projects at Yew Tree. Black company are working towards performing a brand new fairytale written by Sarah, whilst Gold company take us on a tour of theatre through the ages...well the important parts anyway. First, Black company. The story Sarah has written is named “The Princess in Glass”, and despite being a fairytale, this is not a disney story. Not quite dark as a Grimm tale, it’s a look at what happens when surface appearance becomes everything. So far we’ve done a read through, cast some parts, and experimented with the opening. All in all, it’s shaping up to be brilliant. Gold company are doing a 15 minute history of theatre, starting all the way back in ancient Greece right up to the modern day. Not managed to do to much on it yet, but the start we made on Saturday gave the idea that its going to be a hillarious, as well as informative look at different ages of theatre. So, thats just a brief l...

The 24 hours starting on Thursday evening this week were utterly inspiring for the most understated of reasons and three particular events of this time are going to form the heart of this blog.   They are three events that demonstrated the importance of creativity and the power of the arts but not in a grand way, in an every day sort of a way that proves that life with art embedded within it is the best sort of a life...and that the opportunities to do this are on our doorstep… First event – Black Company of Yew Tree Youth Theatre met for the first time in 2013 this week – now considering it was the 3 rd of January and everyone is still in holiday mode, imagine my delight when 29 young people walked through the door.   More delightful still is the fact that 9 of them were visitors - YTYT members who are now at University but taking time out of their precious 2 weeks with their family to check in with us.   I looked round the room at the undergraduates now s...

Charlotte Scott talks about our rehearsals for Tomorrow I'll Be Happy... I thought that I would talk about Connections... Right so I can't even describe how nervous I felt when I first auditioned for Connections, and then when it was over it felt like a weight had been lifted because I got the part that I wanted and I was absolutely thrilled. Now we've started the rehearsal process and begun to pick the play and characters apart its become very clear how much work and commitment is needed from everyone to get it where it needs to be. I can honestly say that I'm really enjoying the rehearsals and after each one I'm just left counting the days until we can do it all again. Every week making more discoveries about our characters and how much I just want to know the script perfectly so I don't have to worry about my lines and can just concentrate on the emotions. It's so intense! But in like a really fun way... I think one of the things that makes it s...