What's happening at YTYT

In a week where the landscape has been one of storm and stress and stand offs I am choosing to spend my blog writing time focusing on the happy things… One of those is of course last night’s open mic night – but Hollie has given you a very excellent insight into all of that loveliness.   That leaves me free to tell you about something else that was very special about this week. On Thursday at Black Company we had a couple of visitors – the first was Bill – an ex miner and one of the driving forces of the Remember the Oaks campaign.   He and a group of the mining community based at the NUM in Yorkshire are trying to raise £150,000.   They will use it to create a memorial to the 361 miners that lost their lives in The Oaks mining disaster 150 years ago this December.   On Thursday Bill told the story of what happened at The Oaks with honesty and eloquence to the performers of Black Company.   These actors are creating a performance inspired by this story,...

Hollie is our guest blogger this week! Tonight was I think we said the 15th open mic night, and wow what night who know so much talent was just under one roof.  The dance studio of WYTD was transformed in to a little stagey venue and it was so lovely and welcoming to be there. As there were so many brilliant acts. Its hard to talk about how fab we all were (everyone absolutely smashed it seriously. wow) so I’m just briefly mentioning my fave bits of everyone. slightsmile emoticon So Clark kicked off the evening with utter class, drawing us in until the very end this guy never fails to impress me with his talent. We then had Ellie who sang two songs, my favourite being Titanium as it suited her voice amazingly and just sounded simply beautiful start to finish. Maya wowed us all with her singing and piano playing something many many people find difficult and Maya did it with complete ease and it sounded fab, a wonderful performance. Then we had One Voice who bravely stood up a...

This point of the YTYT year is always a bit of an odd one.   Yesterday saw the very excellent performance of Lit on the Lawn (see Jacobs blog for more details about that) but it also saw the last Gold sessions for some people who have been getting up for drama club on a Saturday morning for a significant amount of years.   It’s sad but it’s the way it goes – I’m very grateful I get to share the formative years of so many brilliant people and I’ve learnt over the years that when it’s time to let them go, despite the sadness there’s a celebration in watching them start the next chapter. Don’t get me wrong I’ll miss them all but I know they are on to bigger and brighter things, we are not suddenly set on opposite sides…their world and our world just gets bigger.   This was illustrated beautifully when on the same day as the performance and final sessions I spent my lunch time with a YTYT member who left 12 years ago.   She lives in London, is so very successful in so m...

As debut blogs go, this one by Jacob door is impressive! Well, this is my first time writing a guest blog for Yew tree for the whole five years I’ve been going to Yew tree so to be honest I consider it an achievement to have avoided Sarah’s gaze this long. But alas she has caught up to me and I must talk about Lit On The Lawn, the “Madcap literary adventure” performed by Gold Company, which I am a proud part of. Lit On The Lawn has been our focus for a good three months now, starting off alongside our film project The Detective Collective, which if you want to hear more about read Sam Bentley’s previous blog. The whole premise of our idea was to track the development of British literature from the swords of sir Gawain And The Green Knight to the Wands and wizardry of Harry Potter. This whole performance always took just over twenty five minutes when we say at the beginning that “all of British literature in twenty minutes”. So of course as soon as we put a joke in about how it’s tak...

On Friday I was part of an excellent occasion.   The senior dancers at WYTDC – a good proportion of whom are also YTYTers performed a Cabaret of dance and music for an audience of friends family and supporters at Ossett Town Hall.   The evening was unforgettable for lots of reasons and I’ve been thinking about why so it seemed the ideal subject for this week’s blog. Firstly it was one of the most stressful tech’s I’ve ever done – on a show that was supposed to be very simple tech wise this was an unwelcome surprise.   After 26 plans from plan A to plan Z were tried we were saved by the arrival of the right kit and someone who knew where it was supposed to be plugged in.   The relief!! We also got snapped strings sorted and slippy floors resined and so just in the nick of time we were ready for the off…I had time for a quick sigh of relief and then we were rolling. Of course the incredibly high standard of dancing that followed was the main reason that memori...

Sam Bentley with his debut blog! I don’t usually write blogs and this is my first time doing so, here goes I suppose.   I’m going to start by talking about The Detective Collective, which in case anyone doesn’t know is the film Tom and Bailey have been making at gold for the past couple of months. Just recently the short film was released onto YouTube and it shaped up to be a very fun watch. The film is around 16 minutes long and is a comedy about a group of friends that are solving a mystery together, basically Scooby Doo without a talking dog; I will leave it there so I don’t spoil too much. The film was shot in and around the Hepworth art gallery in Wakefield, it was generous of the Hepworth to let us interrupt their otherwise peaceful Saturday mornings so a big thank you to them for that. The Detective Collective was a very fun film to be a part of making as it was made with some of the funniest people I know and this film allowed these people to be as self indulgent as th...

Over the last few months Bailey with the help of Gold Company have been making a short film.  The result is The Detective Collective… a comedy romp that pays homage to Scooby doo, The Princess Bride and Star Wars amongst a wealth of other rich pickings.  It’s also inspired by Hepworth, Wakefield.  All ways round this is a potentially brilliant combination.  It was released yesterday with a premier at Gold Company itself and then an online release later in the day. There is a lot to like about the film but I think my favourite thing – not counting the lovely people who have worked on it, in front of and behind the camera – is the playfulness.   Which makes my blog neatly tie in thematically with Clair’s beautifully written guest blog .   Watching The Detective Collective is a tonic – it has the ability to be thoroughly entertaining without taking itself too seriously, it is a great reflection of the creative heads that made it happen and it’s joyously p...

Clair - YTYT champion and parent is our guest blogger this week! This week our youngest son, Oliver (7), took part in a “Play in a Day” workshop at Yew Tree. Oliver has been a member of Orange Company for three years, but he was apprehensive - what if he didn’t know anyone?   We dropped him off at ten o-clock, excited and maybe a bit nervous. At half past two we returned to see what he had been doing. In less than five hours (including lunch) the group had devised and rehearsed “Alice in Wonderland”. The story was condensed into fifteen minutes, but it was all there – the White Rabbit, the Tea Party, the Duchess, the Cheshire Cat, Croquet and Off With Their Heads!   Everyone had a big smile and had clearly had a great time, and were thoroughly enjoying showing their parents what they had achieved.   A special mention should go to the brilliant “Alice” who was full of feist, but everyone played their parts with energy and joyfulness. Oliver whirled around ...