Transformed Landscapes...

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As I sat down to write this week’s blog the much anticipated, passionately predicted next helping of snow started to fall from the sky.  Pausing to watch it from my kitchen window as I brewed another Sunday morning cup of tea I thought about what it is that makes it such a topic of animated conversation.  Firstly I thought it might be simply the novelty of snow but then I thought surely that must be wearing thin this year.  Much more likely perhaps, to be the unique property of snow to transform familiar landscapes into something entirely new in the space of a couple of hours.  I don’t think I could get tired of that magical experience of going to sleep with a world too familiar and waking to an entirely altered horizon of white and silver and softness. 

However eventually I alighted on what I think might be at the root of the snow hype.  My theory is that from the first fall of snowflakes there is a chance that people’s prospects for their immediate future might be entirely altered.  As I stood there I start to wonder if I needed to collect my son early from Leeds?  Make sure my daughter is home sooner than the plan we made this morning?  Cancel the cinema trip I have planned tonight?  Evaluate the impact if I have to cancel the various work commitments I have tomorrow?  Immediately following that is the thought of what I would do instead – I’d have more chance to read, write, revel in time with the family catching up with each other, watch indulgent television… Watching the heavy white flakes fall a whole other alternate vision for the next 48 hours hovered in front of me…

What has this got to do with Youth Theatre?  Well it’s this…I was involved in 6 hours of Yew Tree workshops and rehearsals yesterday.  I returned home at the end of the day tired but so very fulfilled.  Lifted, inspired, rejuvenated and sated by a day of exploring alternate possibilities…for characters, for stories, for the world that we live in, for real people.  Numerous times I noted someone shift in their perspective of the world and their place in it.  Sometimes this was obvious, a revelation about a character in our Connections play, sometimes more subtle as someone realised they were braver than they thought.  Some of these shift and changes, I think, passed unnoticed by anyone other than me.  Who wouldn’t be fulfilled by a day of watching metaphorical light switches turned on powering metaphorical light bulbs of various degrees of brightness…

As I finish the blog the snow has turned to sleety rain and it appears no transformation of the landscape or my day is on the horizon but that’s ok…Tom can stay for his full ballet lesson, Amy can continue sorting out costumes in Ossett. I will ensure all planning for Monday is in place.  Happily though the shifts and transformations that powered the light bulbs of yesterday still remain and add a little bit more treasure to the Yew Tree Youth Theatre legacy… 

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