Youth Theatre

The youth theatre has become one of my most regular groups to work with.This group is as I have said previously one of 5 youth theatres at the New Vic, for ages 13-15 years. There is also two groups for 10-12 years, another 13-15 years and a senior youth section for 16-18 years. This Thursday group was the one which was most convenient for me to attend, and had I been available I would of liked to attend some of the others, they are every night of the week, and sometimes clashed with my 'actual' work. When I first joined the group they were 4 weeks into there term after Christmas, and were working towards a show back before the Easter break in late March. This group runs term time and at the end of each 'semester' as such performs a show back for their parents to be able to come and see the kind of work they have been doing. 

Youth Theatre

1.    Thursday 23rd February 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

2.    Thursday 1st March 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

3.    Thursday 8th March 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

4.    Thursday 15th March 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

5.    Thursday 26th April 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

6.    Thursday 10th May 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

7.    Thursday 17thMay 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

8.    Thursday 24th May 2012, 4.30pm- 6pm: 1hour 30mins

9.    Saturday 26th May 2012, 10am-3pm: 5hours, Sharing Day

10. Thursday 31st May 2012, 4.30-6pm: 1hour 30mins- still to come.

Each session would start with a few warm up games to get the group feeling comfortable and awake. This could be anything from wink murder, to concentration games and tag. Then each week they would have a theme for the main exercise, one week they did a miniming task similar to the one which I did with the Home Ed group. 

The theme for the show back in March was the theme of 'I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't' looking at the idea of conicidence and fate.  In one of the first sessions I joined them for they were exploring this idea and creating short scences about something appearing to be a conicidence but actually there instinct was right all along. I couldn't make it to the show back unfortunately, but I am told it was very good. The sessions seem very short to put something together, and there is always a worry if everything will be 'alright on the night' but it seems like all their ideas did work in the end and that they produced some good work.

After the Easter break they were told they would have two opportunities for show back this term, one would be the usually end of term show back in July and one would be a sharing day on May 26th. This sharing day was a chance for all the other youth sections to meet up and share some work they had been doing over the term, and for their parents to see the progress so far. After Easter there were a lot of new members in the group, some of whom had moved up from other sections, and some who were completely new. So to be in a show back four weeks later was going to be a big thing for them. 

The theme for all sections for the sharing day was 'Memory' and the section I work with were exploring  how people remember things differently and came up with a short series of scenes about remembering events at a party differently. This day was really beneficial for me as I got to see the work of the groups I do not usually have the chance to work with, so seeing all the other sections was really exciting. You can see a stark difference between the age groups, and how they develop as they get older. Age groups similar to this are the ones I have had the most experience of working with through my time in my own drama group as well as experiences of University, but it is always interesting to see how different groups gel and work together.

I will be working with this group up until the term ends in July, and then I am hoping to stay involved with the theatre on summer projects they have going on. For three days in the June half term they are running musical theatre workshops, and being a big fan of musical theatre I am hoping to be able to get involved with this.