What's happening at YTYT

There has certainly been a lot to say about 2016 and lots of it hasn’t been the happiest.   Reassuringly however the YTYT year has been packed with enough highlights to keep it’s status as a place to retreat to, a place to escape the uncertainty, disappointments and loss of the world outside…this blog serves as a record of my greatest highlights… The first event in the YTYT year to qualify as a highlight has got to be our NT Connections performance, “Eclipse/The Darkness in the Light,” which had it’s local performances in February and the regional performances in Kendal in May.   It was the second time I had directed this Simon Armitage poetic play but this production was very different to my initial go at it.   It classes as a highlight for lots of reasons including the sheer scale of the production – a cast of over 20 creating a partner piece and 3 versions of the same play.   It also classes as a highlight due to the quality of the performances and writing it...

Lucy is our guest blogger! Well I never thought that after 3 years I would be back at Yew Tree but here I am! I came to Yew Tree for 5 years from 2008 to 2013 and it completely shaped the person I am today. Yew Tree was where I discovered my love of acting and because of that I did a BTEC in acting at college and went on to study a degree in drama at university... For 3 months. I left uni after finding out I was pregnant. One year and one baby later I found myself really missing the stage when I happened to stumble across a post on Facebook asking for actors to come and be a part of Macbeth and I couldn't resist. The thought of coming back after such a long time was a daunting one, would I be welcome? Would I fit into this new generation of black company? But I had absolutely nothing to worry about. Everyone was so welcoming and it didn't feel like I was starting in a new place like I though it would, it felt like coming home.  I got to do my first bit of acting in over a...

This is an additional blog - the narrative of Scarlet Company's physical theatre piece for the Christmas shows...I was inspired and thought they might like to see their story in print...scroll down for my mainstream blog of this week - readiness... She knew it wasn’t going to be easy – committing to a career in dance was infamously difficult – she knew there were no short cuts…that every inch of progression was only achievable through hard work…but she was prepared to do it…prepared to work as hard as she could because of how dancing felt when she was truly absorbed by it…when she allowed herself to be entirely enslaved to it… To move, to leap, to fly, to glide, to dance, To connect with every living soul. No feeling like it, all thought entranced. Perfect placement, yet within the control Such freedom unfettered, beyond compare. Alive from finger tips to the ends of feet, Ev’ry nerve, ev’ry sinew, entirely aware, Knowing in that moment you are complete. A ...

Today’s blog is inspired by Alice …who has blogged twice for YTYT at the tender age of 7 and who I spotted at the start of yesterday’s run of Aladdin, when most members of the cast were still chattering and settling, stood perfectly poised and entirely ready…she made me catch my breath such was her level of maturity and concentration.   She also made me think that readiness was a very useful thing to blog about… I talk a lot about being ready in my workshops – in my school work I talk about being ready to learn…in my work with professional organisations about being ready to take on new ideas, to see things from a new perspective and in my drama workshops and rehearsals about being ready to work wholeheartedly and creatively…that actors should be ready to give themselves over to the process of making theatre… It is of course like so many things easier said than done but it makes a big difference when readiness is present – whatever the context – it means that the people in ...

Alice Narey (not the little Alice of my blog - a slightly older but none the less delightful one) is our guest blogger this week: It finally feels like November…Halloween and bonfire night is done, the John Lewis   advert has aired and it's now socially acceptable to mention Christmas. But most importantly, Yew Tree’s Christmas shows are well under way. This week me and Tom finished choreographing our epic sword fight (and trust me it is epic, if you want to see me stick a sword through my legs and somehow make it look cool I'd advise buying tickets) and we also   had the pleasure of showing it to the younger side of Yew Tree – as well as getting   a sneak preview of their own Christmas production and I can tell you it’s   looking adorable! Then, I was lured into helping out at Black Company at the offer of free cake…I’m a sucker for home baked goods. Turns out, that was a pretty good decision, I saw faces I haven't seen in way too long and it was so lovel...

Putting thoughts into words is tricky tonight as my head is overloaded…I’ve just finished an afternoon of dress rehearsals with WY Performers in preparation for their production of Aladdin which happens in less than a fortnight…it’s looking so good…as ever it’s a delightful process to watch something I wrote so many months ago taking shape into a production that will entertain, engage and impress the many people that will come to see it on the 12 th and 13 th of November. It occurred to me as I watched today’s rehearsal that certain things set individual performers (of any age) apart in a production like this…the first is their desire to want to do well rather than an assumption that it will just happen…this however needs to be accompanied by graft as an actor and a dancer that is needed for them to know their lines and steps, understand what they mean and deliver them in a way that is true to the story and the character…this in turn has to be matched with a focus…an ability to ...

Emily is our guest Blogger this week! Well this week we've been very busy at Black company with staging The Snow Princess and I can now happily say we are 3/4 of the way through it and it promises to be a stunning piece! Due to doing the Miners Memorial commitments throughout July, September and October, we started the term on a slight disadvantage against other companies in sense of how much time we'd have to prepare our Christmas show piece. Challenge accepted? Definitely. Black company had an extra rehearsal 12pm until 3pm on Monday to consolidate what we had done in the previous Thursday's rehearsal, catch up anyone who was missing then finally stage the second page of script. Everyone caught up with ease and determination so we could move on to our festival celebration dancing. Yes, you heard me correctly, dancing. With not all of us having taken dance classes before, we spent a lot of time devising our pieces by taking ordinary everyday movements of young people/ch...