What's happening at YTYT

This week has been a wonderful YTYT week - so much to celebrate - it began with the unequivocally joyous news that Yasmin got into RADA - you can read her blog for more information on that...but as a little insight from me...every place at drama school is exceptionally difficult to get and I have such a lot of respect for the YTYT members who demonstrate the greatest determination, resilience and graft as they apply, audition and wait for news...this year not only have all four of the auditionees YTYT have been supporting, achieved places at esteemed training institutions but we also celebrate Alice's graduation from Man Met and Joanna's from LAMDA. These weren't the only graduations we got to celebrate this week as members/alumni of YTYT Jess M, Jess H, Alex and Ashleigh all graduated with excellent degrees in Education, Medicine, Politics and Drama/Eng Lit respectively...and there will be more of this loveliness that I don't know about...so many achievements - such i...

I've been waiting a while to be able to read this blog but it was worth it...I give you the exceptional Yasmin On Monday I heard that I had a place at RADA and it still hasn't quite sunken in. I've realised that when you've wanted something for a really long time and it finally happens, it takes a bit of time to adjust to it! This was my fifth year of applying to drama schools and it has been a tough five years, there has been a lot of rejection and disappointment and my life has had to revolve around drama schools. Every time you meet someone new or see someone you haven't seen in a while, you have to prepare yourself to answer the dreaded life questions such as 'what do you do?' or 'have you been to university then?'. Depending on my mood, I would give a different answer. Either tell them vaguely about my waitressing job and change the subject or explain the logistics of drama school to them.. Explain that its not just like getting a place at ...

A debut blog is always a good thing...especially a really good one like this - all credit to Becky from Gold Company!! Today, my Yew Tree session was spent at the Hepworth Art Gallery, where I took part in Gold company's performance of "Plinth". As a fairly new member of Yew Tree, this has been my second performance (the first also being at the Hepworth) and, although I really enjoyed "Ever after", there was something about "Plinth" that really captivated me. Perhaps its simplicity was what won me over. The idea of "Plinth" is about what people, as individuals, value most in their lives and, in this instance, would choose to put on a plinth. Members of Gold (including myself) were given the task of writing a 30 second speech on something we, or another individual, would choose to place on our plinth. I chose confidence - something I ultimately joined Yew Tree to try gain in - and some other great speeches were written on: individualit...

At Yew Tree Youth Theatre we are very good at celebrating our successes…we celebrate together at the time of success and then capitalize on the happy with a plethora of photographs, feedback, congratulations, praise and games sessions.   At times we may get the impression that every project is one continual easy ride from conception to performance…obviously this isn’t always the case and I thought it might be interesting to give you an insight into when things are a little trickier. We’re having a little bit of a creative wrangle at YTYT – specifically at Sapphire Company…the challenge we are trying to meet is to create a performance that shows what YTYT is about and that can be performed in a place where there will be a lot of other things going on.   It has to be engaging, physical, about creativity and last about 10 minutes.   It turns out it’s harder to meet this challenge than we first thought. We have a starting point for content and some artistic ideas about h...

Thank you Georgia for being our guest blogger Saturdays always have, and always will be my favourite day of the week because I get to spend the day with my yt family....as cheesy as that is. Starting of the day with Gold. Games, rehearsing the Hepworth piece - Plinth (which is coming along a treat), and then more devising for The Snow Queen to finish it off.  The Hepworth piece is so unlike the others we have done and feels like it's about each and everyone one of us, as well as the exhibit, like we as actors have been able to personally connect with the artist by creating our own interpretation of the exhibition.  Devising for the Snow Queen has proved difficult this week because the last chapter had to be adapted a little more to fit with the scenes that had already been written, for example some of the events it lists could not be revisited as they hadn't occurred in the first place (talking reindeers DO NOT exist), it was also difficult to try and think of an alterna...

This week witnessed what can only be described as a watershed production in the world of Yew Tree as we celebrated outstanding talent in our performance of Beauty and the Beast.   I’ll leave the review to Alice who has written very eloquently about the production in her blog…instead I’ll say goodbye and thank you to the graduating class of 2015.   Our next production for Black Company will be minus some actors that have been part of the fabric of YTYT and they will be sorely missed.   Happily they move onto exciting new chapters in their life and we wish them all the luck in the world.   Yasmin is moving to London in September, Dee has a place to train as an actor in LA, Rachel has a number of professional performance contracts lined up over the summer with companies including Euro Disney and Riptide. George will take up his place to train as an actor at Guilford School for Acting in September and Louis at Leeds University to study drama. Merv leaves this week t...

Alice Narey is our guest blogger On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of watching Black Company perform Beauty and the Beast. This performance was a special one as it was the last performance that some of the cast would do with Yew Tree Youth Theatre for a long time, if not ever… However, that didn’t stop them from putting on an outstanding performance of the classic tale – Beauty and the Beast. The classic tale was slightly different this time of course, the story included 2 characters with a close resemblance of the ugly sisters from another classic tale – Cinderella - also the Beast did not have singing furniture but 2 robots who’s love life was very complicated... I shall say no more. It was incredibly funny and I don’t think I’ve laughed as much at any other performance. The whole cast were amazing and I would be more than happy to ever be half as good as them. Also, I cannot forget to mention the great costumes for the furniture and the costumes in general. I really enjoyed t...

This week has been focused on the final stages in rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast .   Directing is such a balance of control and trust…there’s so much you need to organize, guide, shape, sort…but ultimately the play is in the hands of the actors…unless they learn their lines, sort their costumes, think about their characters, unless they are inspired, prepared to graft and work as a team, there is nothing I as the director can do no matter how much control I try to take.   They also have to have a great deal of self-belief… in fact I am constantly in awe of their strength and bravery. Three weeks ago I began to think that the challenges involved in putting on Beauty and the Beast might be too numerous to sort out in the time that we had…not for any other reason than I didn’t have the time and   resources to do everything needed.   Turns out I didn’t need to worry…happily my cast were inspired, hard working and generous enough to make sure tha...

A welcome return to Sam as our guest blogger I see having an English Language exam tomorrow the perfect excuse to write a blog: obviously, it counts as revision, so no harm done. Moreover, alongside this, Sapphire Company this week was full of plenty of things to write about and our creative task differed from our usual offering so it would simply be a crime not to seize this opportunity. Refreshingly, after I had taken two weeks off due to GCSE woes, our first game this week was Coconuts. It’s one of those games where things don’t just get easy with time. Sarah was telling us about how new groups of people can find it difficult, yet to become used to the format of the game, leading to a slower pace. With experience, Coconuts is one of those games that just speeds up, maintaining the mental challenge and keeping your heart rate going.   Taking it for granted most weeks, I felt this was something notable to take away because I suppose it is nice to see how challenges can stil...