What's happening at YTYT

I genuinely am not sure where to start in trying to reflec t on this week…we have achieved so much!   Straight after the exceptionally successful, “Reprise,” last Saturday in less than a week we have staged an original musical, hosted an international event and performed a piece of theatre that encouraged 19 year olds to think about the kind of culture and community they want to create for themselves.   All of that in just 6 days. To achieve something like that takes an exceptional amount of thought, organisation, talent, commitment and above all graft and I definitely had times when I wondered if the demands of this week were possible to achieve…turned out we were more than up to the task, each of the events was of the standard we expect at YTYT and beyond.   It’s a shame that it’s so difficult sometimes to visualise the rewards to come when you’re in the middle of the struggle.   It would make the motivation to get to the point of performance so much easie...

Followed by Harry   Wednesday.. Wednesday was just simply fantastic. meeting and performing along side norways very own Lærlingan was an Absolute honour. 'Inspired by Music' was truly a pleasure to take part in! the day began with a familiar set up of meeting at West a yorkshire dance school to set up the venue and slotting in a few last minute rehearsals of our short group pieces inspired by music. a short while after Lærlingan arrived. they were all unbelievably friendly and charming, delightfully introducing themselves to everybody as soon as they arrived! after the introductions were over both Yew Tree and Lærlingan started to rehearse once more, and I was blown away by the amount of talent they possessed, even in rehearsal, Lærlingan were effortless in performance and spectacular in spirit. however Rolf stated that Rehearsal was very minimal in performance, a spectacle that us actors may not be very used to, but the laid back Norwegian way of life could inde...

  Amy Winder is our first guest blogger... Oh, the joys of a Gold company games session. With, "Reprise," done and dusted, it was great to have a Saturday morning of Yew Tree oddness. We played an array of our favourite games including Ha (is it just me who feels feels like everyone's laughing at me when I get out?) and cowboys and Indians. Michael, thankfully, got caught out in wink murder before I could become the bottom of a pile of dead bodies; not fun, I've been there before. To add to the chaos, we played Golden Egg, a bizarre game involving everyone crawling around with their eyes shut. The highlight, of course, had to be theatre by chance, a version of Yew Tree roulette in which the other groups got to create the genre and etc. I bet you can't guess how many musicals there were! I think my group's performance of a musical about an eye operation by a doctor with a flying pet pig, set under the sea, with an opening line of "Are you...

Georgia Petts with her views on, "Reprise" The "Reprise," performance was amazing! It was brilliant to be back on Wakefield Theatre's stage performing. Orange Company's take on the book, "Giraffes Can't Dance," was fabulous they are such talented little people, Crimson's performance was very different and extremely entertaining, Gold Company's, "A to Z of Shakespeare," brought back old memories from the, "One Night Only," performance, and the dances themselves were fabulous. All the little, little people were very well behaved when we had to take them to a from the theatre and hotel. All I can say is I hope there is a"Reprise 2," because the first two performances were such fun that to do a third would be a treat.

The first of my significant challenges of what promises to be a landmark week happened yesterday when we put the finishing touches to the performances for "Reprise" at the Theatre Royal.   There have been times over the last few weeks when I was sceptical as to whether it was possible to pull it all together and I was prepared for this show to be more fraught than usual however turns out I should have had faith in my youth theatre as their performances were, as I said on facebook, nothing short of wonderful. Lets look at them in age order…first we had my very excellent Orange Company, a set of enormously talented 7 – 11 year olds who performed, “Giraffe’s Can’t Dance.”   Their pluck as they performed to almost 400 people was a joy to watch as they retold the story with talent and also with humour.   I held my breath almost all the way through, willing them to be as good as I know they are and they didn’t disappoint, they were a pleasure to behold. Then we had...

Gemma who directed "These Feet of Mine" and some of the cast share their thoughts on the piece they created for "Reprise" As a practitioner it's a one of the greatest joys working with young people. They have a freedom that is not yet jaded by the world. Occasionally we get asked to be part of something bigger than ourselves and when this happens it brings needs, fear and rewards of its own. We were given the constraints of creating a piece of theatre that was between 8-10mins long, had to be of a standard that people had come to expect of the youth theatre, and it had to be relevant. So we spent a week or two playing around with thoughts and ideas and struggled to meet all the needs, without amplifying the fears. Until we came up with the idea of 'them'. The idea that they would conjure a piece that looked at them, their wants, hopes, fears. I couldn't think of a better stimulus to meet the ask. They talked for an age and a day a...

It’s been a week of lovely surprises this week…the first came at Open Mic Night 10 on Sunday…in fact this event sparked a number of the lovely surprises.   Firstly there was the turn out, so many of you came to support your friends and fellow youth theatre members as they sang and spoke and performed.   It was a wonderful night, made especially wonderful by the first time performers…Hollie despite her resistance about singing was a joy to listen to and Ellen put on an absolute “Show,” Tom played and sang for the first time and also for the first time we had a flash mob at an Open Mic Night.   All these things made it a night to remember, and the remembering of it has been made easier by the excellent photo’s by Melissa which capture the evening beautifully. However the surprises didn’t stop there…the ease at which Sapphire devised the opening scene of their Christmas play was a joy to behold, though not entirely a surprise as they are usually superb.   The e...