What's happening at YTYT

It is a startling fact that as I write this, this time next week the dress rehearsals for the Christmas shows will be starting and this time in a fortnight the shows will be over.*    This moment in the Christmas term always takes my breath away…how has it gone from those playful days in September when sessions were full of conjecture and play and possibilities to the frantic rehearsals where we have a finite amount of hours to pull everything together…and why when my rational side knows that it’s been weeks and weeks since then does it seem like those heady happy days were two minutes ago? So it’s my duty now to tell you that it’s now it’s over to you.   Gemma and I have done the majority of what we can do.   Obviously we’ll keep doing as much as we can – we’ll run the tech’s and advise you and coach you and problem solve and champion you until you take your final bows...however ultimately the success of the productions is all about you.   Here are some o...

Amy Winder is our guest blogger this week I find that, in the early stages of rehearsal, there is nothing more satisfying than working through the script, setting out different scenes and getting a better idea of the thoughts and feelings about each character. After only two rehearsals and one read through, Hacktivists is in pretty good shape. We've got a great set, the first scene and a bit is on it's feet and we know watch out for when we're acting (not knowing what's going to happen before it happens). I've thought a lot more about my character at this stage. Originally, I walked into the first rehearsal knowing that I was playing Denise (hacker name Spanner), a computer techie, who is particularly into the engineering side of technology. Now, I've made discoveries about her: I know what year group she's in, some of the relationships with the others and her opinions on them. Most of these things, I'd normally think about far later into rehearsals b...

Yesterday was a glorious youth theatre day…I have to admit it didn’t have the most auspicious start as I’m sure the members of Gold Company would agree.   Still I like to think we brought a bit of life to the Eastmoor estate as we played Killer 12 in front of the community centre.   I remarked at the time to the company and then later that afternoon to my family that a lesser group of young people would have let the circumstances get to them…not Gold Company – there was no unruliness or rebellion and despite the inclement temperature there wasn’t even any complaining… Before too long we were in the rehearsal room and straight away we were fully absorbed in Christmas show rehearsals.   Over the two and a half hours that followed the whole cast worked so hard.   The result?   The massive achievement of finishing the dance that represents the ball where our 12 Dancing Princesses ruin their shoes and exhaust themselves every night.   The spontaneous cheer ...

A farewell from Calum as he goes back up the road to Falkirk Many people ask me, "So how are you getting on working away?" My response is difficult because I haven't stopped the whole month. Where exactly do I start? I was welcomed into the Osborne household for the month. Looked after doesn't come close to describing their hospitality. I was told my first week would be busy and it was. Halloween at Nostell, such an amazing welcome from a truly awesome cast. As if walking ELEVEN kilometres round the grounds would be enough to tire you out, I was eager to start the Yearbook tour which was set ready to go.    It's at this point I sat back and realised how lucky I was to be there. The Yearbook tour started really well visiting lots of schools in the Wakefield district some close some far ( it's the first time I've seen 6:00 am on a clock I a long time) I must take the time to thank the lovely Hannah Speke for looking after me on busses even alt...

Bobbie has blogged about last week's Open Mic Night... Another year, another Open Mic Night . How can you even sum up the talent and.....entertainment factor (Michael Brown, I'm looking at you), from just one night? It's a pretty impossible task, so I'll try and keep it short, but sweet, with a few particular highlights like........ Sara and her awesome poem! Mirv singing a Smash song because HE SANG A SMASH SONG. Just simply getting to listen to Jordan's voice. Hearing how much Clarke has grown and progressed in just a year. Hearing how well Tom and Graces voices sounded together. Shelbie sang a Jonas Brother and my sisters face lit up!! Alllll of The Wardrobe love coming back with Ellen singing Safe and Sound, followed by Hollie and a sea of tears (cheers for that Hollie...) That's me done! So, what did you do for your holidays?'

Yesterday at Gold Company marked the start of that by now well known part of rehearsals for the Christmas show...the bit where everyone realises that it's time to step up... It happens at about this time every year when the process of rehearsals and making theatre moves out of the exploring and playful bit and shifts gear into the meeting of demands and pulling everything together phase. That stepping up comes in many forms - it's about preparation - ensuring your lines are learnt in such away that whatever happens they come naturally to you, making sure you have your props and costumes, making sure you have enough energy when you show up to rehearse.  It's about discipline once you're there - focusing on the task in hand, readiness, discipline, making the rehearsal room as conducive as possible to achieving the best performance.  It's about performance...employing and applying the techniques and skills in voice, movement, creativity, character and story telling...

Amy W...blogs about the launch of our Connections production "Hacktivists" Saturday, on the 15th November 2014, began like any other. I got up to my alarm clock (and didn’t fall back to sleep like I would on a school day) and set about getting ready for the day. I collected my script, props and costume (Gold company’s Twelve Dancing princesses is going swimmingly by the way, despite people standing on the full length ball gowns and Toni falling over), before heading to Yew Tree and happily humming along to Gold by Spandau Ballet. This Saturday, however, was not to be like any other. For this Saturday marked the beginning of the rehearsals of Hacktivists for National Theatre Connections 2015. It’s such an exciting thing because, having done The Wardrobe last year, a lot of us know what an amazing experience Connections is. Those who don’t only have to only had to look around at the palpable excitement in the room to know how much fun we’re going to have. If I ever was i...

Olena blogged about our visit to the Hepworth last weekend Gold Company started off the week with a confusing ending to a game of coconuts where I won (apparently) and Callum helped us keep up the ball for 100 throws we set off tracking through our progress on the 12 Dancing Princesses. Fine tuning the spirits entrance and the Princesses’ cute waving, I feel we could be well on track to perfecting our performance- if we are all diligent in learning our lines to be off script by this forthcoming Saturday. After a morning of dancing and twirling around a drama studio, a few fellow yew tree members and I ventured down to the Hepworth Gallery for an extra helping into the yew tree box of imagination. Touring around the gallery our creativity began to flow. Alexandra Bircken’s leather skins draped over ladders began the focus of our ideas leading into the realm of the true (in my opinion) underlying tones of fairytales- despair, death, but ultimately hope as the climbed towards the...

This week hasn’t been the easiest – as Gemma and I discussed last night there seems to be a slight tarnish on the world as people acclimatise to the darker evenings and drop in temperature that signifies the approach of winter.   I’ve been needlessly shouted at by parents in a schoolyard, frustrated by the lack of response from some of the organisations I work for and saddened by the circumstances of some of the people I work with find themselves in.   That on top of the usual business of a relentless schedule has made it a challenging week. Yesterday however restored the balance entirely.    Gold Company were a joy and we really started to make progress on our Christmas play fine tuning scenes and tightening moments to make the storytelling as precise as it needs to be.   Then a couple of hours playing at The Hepworth with some particularly committed Gold Company members. This visit was the first step to our Responses performance we are developing that wil...

It's been a while...but Hannah is our guest blogger...hurray for that!!   It’s been a week where I’ve spent about 100% of my time doing something Yew Tree related. So it’s been pretty busy. At the moment I’m involved in Yearbook, which is a piece of TIE that tours high schools in the Wakefield area. It was our first week this week and we’ve already performed for about 400 year 7 students and 240 of those were in one hour! It’s been both terrifying and brilliant, but in every school so far the students have really engaged with the performance and given us lovely insightful responses in the workshop afterward…most of the time anyway. Some of them were more concerned with slapping my characters ex-boyfriend for being ‘a right idiot’. But it’s lovely to see classes that are considered low ability, or people who the teachers say never contribute in lessons putting their hands up and being brave enough to share their opinions. And of course Calum and Sarah are great as well. T...

Shelbie is the last minute third guest blogger So this week has been full of the spookiness of Halloween and Nostell. On Monday and Tuesday we were all working hard on trying to get every scene as perfect as we could without having the actual gardens but by Wednesday we were on our way to Nostell. We started off by setting where each scene would take place with in the gardens which was quite fun, once that was done we were able to start putting the scenes into their location.  The next 2 days were tiring as some of us did a 11 hour day but all is well as we got spend time with the rest of our Yew Tree family. While we were waiting for our first show of Ghosts In the Gardens, me, Tom, Amy, Rhiannon and Abbie - Leigh were well ahead on getting our Remembrance play sorted. Meanwhile the rest of the cast were to busy creating a game called Yew Tree Hunger Games which me and Tom joined in the next day.  On the Friday it was much the same as the previous day. After having the ...

The last half term has been intense – 8 weeks long and full of all sorts of projects and hardly a moment to draw breath – in addition to the work we do as Yew Tree Arts in schools and for health services the youth theatre accomplished Plays and Pints, Castle of Dreams, The Miners Memorial service and of course all their weekly workshops.   For the week proceeding this one lots of people asked me if I was looking forward to a break over half term…I would smile wryly in response knowing that I had the busiest week ahead of me…by the end of it Yearbook would be ready for a three week tour of Wakefield schools and YTYT would have performed their Halloween at Nostell performances…not a lot in the way of a break…however the half term week was as lovely as it was challenging. Creating two plays, for two different audiences to be performed 12 times in total over two days is a big ask…it makes demands on a company of actors – add to that the fact “Ghosts in the Garden,” was a promenade...

Followed by Libby So this half term has been pretty hectic as it has been the workshop and performances of Halloween at Nostell, and if you didn't come and see a performance of either shows, then shame on you because you missed a treat. To say it's all over now, is quite upsetting considering all of the hard work we had put in to make these performances happen, and be the best that we could make them. Rehearsals started with a read through, as all rehearsals do, and then we jumped straight into staging both plays, Wilma the witch 2: back to school and Ghosts in the garden. Wednesday was quite an important day for the cast of Ghosts in the garden, as it was the first day we could actually go to Nostell and stage the two plays properly and finally put the missing a pieces to the puzzle. As soon as this was done scenes clicked together properly and everything flowed smoothly. One of my highlights would be the waiting before each tour because, I for one, get such a buzz just thin...

Sam Winder is our first guest blogger That was a brief little overview of just my time preparing for Halloween at Nostell. With so many of us though, everyone will have a different story and I only found time to mention a fraction of what happened. Like I said before, the best thing about the past few days has been creating memories, as horrendously cheesy as that sounds. Just the same as last year, I am having slight withdrawal symptoms and my day seems somewhat empty in all honesty. To prove that I am not the only one in this situation, I thought I would share a few things people have said since yesterday on the Halloween group wall… (I don’t know if this is allowed but I live life on the edge). “Well done guys, proud of everyone!! Another year gone of Halloween at Nostell.” “you are all the greatest people” “You are probably sick of these already but you are some of the most amazing people have had the privilege to meet and I love you all dearly!” “I could not o...