What's happening at YTYT

Emily from Orange who also attends WYTDC wrote a blog about performing on Friday...she is perhaps one of our youngest bloggers yet! On Friday at West Yorkshire Theatre Dance we performed 2 types of storytelling theatre, “Princess Blankets,” and “Spirits Of The Landscape!” From my point of view, the voices were clear and even though sometimes we stumbled on words we just picked it up without making a big deal... We learned that not all types of drama have to be just scripts its nice to do that but then its more of a challenge learning them in class! The best bit was in Princess Blankets when we had to recreate the blankets within movement but it wasn't dancing as such. You could tell by the audience's faces that they were listening as they kept smiling!!!!

Last week was all about the anticipation for a full on YTYT week so it seemed only fair that this week I should reflect on some of the highlights… Before we get into the performances which is going to be my focus of the blog, Aladdin is a treat…a treat I tell you…my next task after this is to write the next scene and I’m positively looking forward.   What I particularly like about it is how we balance not taking it too seriously with integrity…which is pretty much a reflection of the Sapphire Company itself… Which brings us on to Comedy of Errors, which was in fact a triumph.   The Black Company created something that can only be described as outstanding.   They pushed the boundaries of performance, of bravery, of focus to produce a performance which presented Shakespeare’s most farcical play to their audience with a flourish.   Never have I been more proud of them.   Inevitably some of the audience were baffled by the cast’s quick fire deliver...

Second up is Beth from Crimson - who's performance of Touchstone was a delight... My first attempt at a blog- well there's a first for everything! So here goes.... As part of getting our play prepared for the evening, we spent the day at Nostel Priory; getting used to the space, the wind, and sometimes the rain. We rehearsed the play twice fully- finding parts to improve on each time, which later helped with our performance.   After the first run (and a lovely half an hour break) we had a full vocal warm up exercise. I thought that this was great because it helped us with our projection, so we could boost our voices- and at least try and compete against the raging wind! It also helped me to learn how to speak some of those difficult Shakespearean words! When we had finished the second run, we were given feedback, and enabled time to get into the thoughts of our character, and walk around the space as our character. Also, we looked at some of the lines which we thought were di...

First guest blog of the week is from Yasmin who played one of the Dromio's in Comedy of Errors So this week was performance week for Black Company’s Comedy of Errors!! We had our dress rehearsal in Black Cloud at the Hepworth on Tuesday in lovely sunny weather and everything went well.   On Wednesday it was sunny throughout the day and then it decided to rain in the evening which was obviously rubbish considering we were performing outside! But we didn’t let this get us down and the performance went brilliantly. We had a great audience who laughed at all the right times (especially Gemma!) and generally looked interested, which is always nice! As well as a good audience, we also had lovely feedback, which made us look forward to Thursday night’s performance even more. On Thursday, everyone woke up to horrible miserable weather (especially considering we’re in June!!). The forecast wasn’t looking good for the evening but, after much deliberation, it was decided we were going to pe...

Being the artistic director of Yew Tree Youth Theatre…is literally a dream job, it is my dream job.  I love it…it occupies my thoughts when I’m awake and my dreams when I am asleep and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  However it is undeniably all encompassing, unrelenting and quite frankly often simply ridiculous.  There are the big things to sort out: funding, staffing, strategy, programming.  The medium things to get done: planning sessions, writing scripts, providing references and offering advice.  Finally there are the little things: the individual circumstances of each person I work with do they need space, inspiration, challenging, nurturing…an understanding shoulder to cry on or a metaphorical slap in the face for the decisions they’re making about their present or their future or both…as I said all in all a little all encompassing… That’s just in an average week…and next week is going to be anything but average. Monday I direct Sapphire…now prog...

Brittany from Sapphire writes her first blog for us... Blogging….not something I’ve done before…but I’m going to attempt it. I will tell you the story of a theatre group, not too far away, who arrived one day to be told ‘we’re going to devise our play’. Cue some smiles, some -.- faces (no other way to describe them…), and some confusion (mostly on my part). So, after games (and a new rule put forward by Sarah: no groaning at game choices) we were given the task to devise the first couple of scenes of Aladdin. A few minutes talking and we were away!!!   Now, as a new recruit this year and never having done anything like this before I was put into a group of professionals (AKA, people who understood what devising entailed, and who could guide me through this confusing time) and we were given scene two to devise. I will not tell you the plot of this particular scene, as that is best left for our performances, but it was pretty simple. Or so I thought. Me being who I am, it was hard ...

YTYT went national today as I travelled to Bexhill on Sea to deliver workshops for a youth theatre based there.  Now for those of you who have never been, which up until this weekend included me, Bexhill on Sea is way, way, way down the country…past London and keep going for a good couple of hours…until you reach Sussex.  As I type this I am still making my way back to Wakefield with a good couple of hours to go.  So was it worth it…all that travelling to work with a group of strangers.  The answer is definitely yes…I spent all day playing games, creating theatre, teaching physical theatre.  The satisfaction of bestowing the gift of continuous images on a group of 15 year olds that have never come across it and then turning devised physical duets into a piece of theatre with scripts they had written themselves was magic.  Not to mention of course that I found myself in the same restaurant as my absolute hero Eddie Izzard on the Saturday evening, I was...