What's happening at YTYT

How brilliant that when the Youth Theatre has been a little quiet and therefore there isn't much in the way of guest bloggers that Mel's Dad steps up to the challenge... Hey Yew Tree!   Great Halloween Treat you put on at Nostell last week.   I went expecting to be startled and scared.   It wasn’t startling… just really creepy.   And I’m guessing that isn’t easy to act out .   So well done!   Amazing talent as ever! The problem I have is that when I watch these performances it always starts me thinking…very dangerous I know!!!   And this time it got me thinking about our motivation for doing “stuff”, how we can keep interested in doing “stuff” for, and how we deal with “stuff” when we can’t do it any longer. I could go on for hours about this, but you want me to keep this blog interesting right??   So here’s just a few lines about four stages you might want to think about when you need to make decisions about “stuff” to do with your...

With the Halloween at Nostell performance being a major feature of the last 7 days, this week has been dominated by fear and all things fear related…and as it turns out fear is a much more complicated issue than I first thought…Who would have thought, for example, in a group of actors volunteering to take part in a Halloween performance I’d have so many that are genuinely scared of the dark and all the imaginary things that might lurk in it… In a production like this you find yourself applying a psychological view point as much as a creative one as a lot of your time is spent trying to predict how audiences will react to what you present them with…the answer to this, is of course, you never can tell…it’s dependant on so many things…so all you can do is make the performance you believe is the right one, the one that upholds your artistic values and suits the identity of the venue and the company…in this case a job well done I feel… It’s hard to do a show where you aren...

And Tom Mc the 5th... Halloween this year so far has been “bloody” brilliant! Aha simply because I have had the pleasure of performing, not only at Nostell Priory again with Yew Tree, but performing as apart of a Ghost Walk, something I have always wanted to do!!…And the opening night on the Saturday evening was both very exciting and spooky, all at the same time… The performances were split into two different but equally important types…First there’s the Outside Tour, which is all about following Amelia’s footsteps through the woods, and being told of her life’s story and tragic demise by tour guides and story tellers…And second are the House Tours which consist of groups of people being lead around the basements and attic of Nostell Priory, and again, told of chilling stories and past encounters with spirits the staff have had... I am part of the House cast with James, Charlotte, Beth and Ashleigh and we all perform short monologues and characters either based on truth or fic...

Lucy T. wrote the 4th Hi guys, I’m thinking I should probs write a blog this week since I was supposed to last week after doing work experience with Yew Tree... I did write one last week, it just never made it as far as reaching Sarah due to a bottle of Tru Blood spilling on and then breaking my phone, and the Hilton charging horrendous prices for wi-fi. So yeah, I’m writing a blog. Right, a fair few Yew Tree-ers have spent their week at Nostell rehearsing for all sorts of Halloweeny performances and it’s been really really nice     we have an absolutely terrifying tour of the basement and attics of Nostell going on (not kidding, it’s actually terrifying, I nearly cried/suffered from a heart attack), aaaand we have an equally as creepy outside tour of the grounds, a ghost walk. And it’s the ghost walk that I’ve been (and still am, still got another couple of performances to do, so get yourselves there on Monday) part of. I’m one of the storytellers you get to meet on your ...

The third one comes from Dee So this week at Nostell we’ve been rehearsing Amelias footsteps.. the tale of a 16 year old girl who falls in love with a ghost, Francis.. leading to her suicide. Its something completely different to anything at all I’ve done with Yew Tree before... I mean: 1) We're in the woods of nostell priory just jay ceeing with woodland creatures and that …   2) We're playing dead people running about all ghosty   and  3) ITS PITCH BLACK AND ALL WE HAVE IS A LANTERN (and a torch like, but still..) so yeah.. s’different to the stage and warmth that were used to.. and y’know daylight.. Without sounding a cheeseball though I’m pretty proud of myself for conquering my fear ha I mean on the first rehearsal that we had we did a run of the tour in the semi dark.. it was 6pm (nowhere near as dark as the performance times at 7pm and 8pm we did last night) and yep I bawled my eyes out in the woods on Mikey and probably caused circulation issues in his arm ...

Mel's is the next... So this week for us older ones of Yew Tree has been pretty loud, emotional, grumpy and whatever else anyone is when they're just flat out tired.   Amelias Footsteps and the Spooky House Tour have been such good performances to be a part of! Everyone has got soo into it and even made themselves scared. Its such a different experience for us as a youth theatre, its teaching us to learn new skills, interact with people in ways we never would and for some of us, face our fears head on and still produce such a brilliant piece of theatre.   Each day we have seen little parts of it all come together and flow even better but its down to us as performers to push it more and more each time to produce a more entertaining piece of quality theatre for the audience. All week we've rehearsed and felt more comfortable in what we were doing - until - it became dark. As soon as there is no natural light left the parklands are nothing less than pitch black and its lik...

First Halloween blog is by James B Ahhhh, Halloween at Nostell. Where do I even start? It’s been brilliant, just five days of yew tree. Its not been normal yew tree though, which has been weird. Me being used to Saturday mornings and all that, anyway, I’ll get on with the blog now… So of all the ideas floating about, Sarah wrote us a ghost story about a girl who gets practically possessed by ghost called Francis (that’s me). This is what we had at 1pm on Monday afternoon. The challenge for us was to move the story onto the grounds of Nostell priory and I think we did it pretty well personally, that’s sounds really cocky but oh well. I think it was possibly the most fun I have ever had planning a performance, I mean, the first run through consisted of running round Nostell priory finding places to get seen. After that it was a matter of doing it again and again until we knew the route. Everybody had their own set of challenges to overcome aswell, which made it even more interesting, ...