There’s so much excitement here at the theatre as everyone prepares for the opening night of American Idiot. The final dress rehearsal is this evening and the cast are busy getting ready backstage!
The show looks AMAZING and everyone involved has worked so hard to get it ready for the performances which take place tomorrow night, Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. This is going to blow the roof off Ogstoun!
Congratulations to the cast of Coriolanus who were assessed for a Trinity College London Exam during their recent performance at Eden Court as part of the Shakespeare Schools’ Festival.
The group achieved Grade 8 with Distinction in the ‘Plays in Production’ exam.
This is a great achievement, the grade required to achieve distinction was 85/100 marks and the group achieved a total of 92/100.
Well done to them.
Why so glum? You scored 92/100… Smile!
The end of November is that special time of year when our Year 13 students take their Children’s Theatre Tour to local primary schools.
This year has been no exception with two plays – ‘Lola’s Magic Toybox’ and ‘Parachute’ touring to the primaries. As well as the usual plays aimed at a younger audience, this year we’ve tried something slightly different with one play – an adapted version of ‘Coriolanus’ touring to an older audience at secondary schools.
All of the plays were extremely well received. As always, we are very grateful to the schools we visited for letting us bring our work.
It’s always fascinating to see the great work that comes out of this project. The year 13 students were very successful in the creation of the pieces and it’s brilliant that they are able to share their work with our local community.
Here are some slideshows that give a flavour of the work from each group…
Lola’s Magic Toybox
Parachute
Coriolanus
Our annual Year 10 Shakespeare has been ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.
What a fantastic cast these Year 10 students were during the entire process of the rehearsal!
Everyone listened carefully to the direction they were given, they learned their lines when they were asked, they worked together fantastically well and did as they were asked in every rehearsal, then performed brilliantly on the night! what more could I ask? The entire process was great fun for me and hopefully fun for them as well.
Well done to everyone in the cast and thanks to everyone who helped out with rehearsals, tech and costumes.
Here’s a slideshow of pictures from the production…
During the Autumn half term, the Drama and Dance departments joined to take our production of Romeo and Juliet on international tour. Having first been presented here in school in June 2015, the production then had a short tour of Scottish Prep Schools (Craigclowen, Cargilfield, Ardvreck) at the beginning of the Autumn Term before leaving for the USA on Thursday 15th October.
The United States Tour was in two parts, with a total of four performances over ten days. The first port of call was Boston MA where we performed at Boston Latin School. Boston Latin is the oldest school in the United States, amongst its many famous alumni are five signatories of the Declaration of Independence including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock. We performed in their Black Box Theatre to a group of over 150 students. Whilst in Boston we enjoyed exploring the city, visiting Faneuil Hall Market Place and the Boston Tea Party Museum and walking part off the ‘Freedom Trail’ to learn something of the history of the city and its important role in the Independence of the United States.
We travelled by ferry from Boston to the historic town of Salem where we visited the Salem Witch Museum and learned about the events that led to the famous Salem Witch Trials, immortalised so brilliantly in Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’. Whilst in Salem we took a break from performing to watch (and sing along with) a fun production of ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, part of the Haunted Happenings Festival that was going on whilst we were there.
Leaving Boston on Sunday 18th, we travelled down to Brooklyn where we were to spend the next few days staying with host families from Middle School 51. Brooklyn was fantastic, with a lovely relaxed atmosphere and all of the host families made the staff and students feel really at home. Our first Brooklyn performance was at Edward Murrow High School on Monday 19th October. This very large school (4000 students) has a strong focus on Performing Arts and we enjoyed meeting some of their Drama students during a workshop led by teachers from both schools. The cast adapted exceptionally well to a new space here, with the audience seated on two sides of the stage. Following the show, the cast gave an excellent Question and Answer session to the audience culminating in an impromptu Robert Burns recitation by Craig F. to the thrilled audience!
On Tuesday, we travelled into Manhattan where we had a lovely bike ride around Central Park and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then it was off to New York University (NYU) to perform to our most mature audience of the tour, a group of PHD education students studying ‘Theatre for Young Audiences’. Again the cast adapted brilliantly to a new space and performed a wonderful and quite intimate show in a small acting studio with no theatre lighting. The cast once again received Questions from the audience and responded with exceptionally intelligent and well informed responses.
Wednesday began with a restful exploration of Brooklyn. We all enjoyed having a bit of down time to look for gifts, search through vintage shops, generally wander through the lovely leafy streets and relax in Prospect Park. On Wednesday evening we held our final performance of Romeo and Juliet in the very large theatre at MS51. It was great to be able to perform for so many of the people who we had all become friends with whilst in Brooklyn and even better to receive a standing ovation for our final show.
Leaving Brooklyn on Thursday felt quite sad, but we headed to Manhattan, knowing that we still had exciting things ahead of us… We celebrated the end of Romeo and Juliet with a meal at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the waiting staff performed Broadway hits as we ate! We had a cruise on Hudson Bay with excellent views of the Statue of Liberty from the water… We had an amazing stage fighting workshop with a Broadway choreographer and saw the latest Broadway smash, ‘Something Rotten’. Following the show we went backstage and saw the theatre from the stage, with more than a few of the cast imagining themselves up there in front of an audience in the future! We ended the tour with a midnight trip up the Empire State Building on Friday night were we looked out across the city of New York lit up at night and stretching out as far as we could see.
Throughout the tour the students were fantastic and proved themselves as outstanding ambassadors for the school. They showed their maturity and courageous spirit, not only through their wonderful performances but also everywhere we went and with everyone they spoke to.
I’d like to say an especially huge thank you to the Drama Department at MS51 and to all those who hosted us in their homes whilst we were in Brooklyn. We received such a warm welcome and we’ll remember our time with you all forever.
Earlier this term we took our Year 12 Theatre Studies students for a great overnight trip to Pitlochry to see three plays at the Festival Theatre. With the theatre holding its annual reparatory season, we were able to see three very contrasting plays – Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Improbable Fiction’, Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and the musical ‘A Little Night Music’ by Stephen Sondheim. It was a lovely trip with lovely weather, really enjoyable shows and a great atmosphere at the Festival Theatre.
Our Year 12 Production of Romeo and Juliet in Ogstoun was a great success. As always with our summer show, the rehearsal period was very short and very intense with the students returning from study leave less than two weeks before the show hit the stage. The cast worked exceptionally well together and the show took shape quickly and efficiently.
This was a contemporary adaptation of the play with a running time of approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes. The piece was a condensed version of the original play in a modern setting combining Shakespeare’s language and characters with contemporary characters and modern language. The action was placed within the framing device of a group of secondary school students as they discover that they have two new teachers who help them to study and explore the play in an unconventional way. The cast combine dance and drama to explore the story and the framing device allows us to clarify and highlight some of the key themes of Shakespeare’s wonderful tragedy; the audience learn about the play alongside the students in the story.
The set for the play was necessarily simple as this piece will be touring to Boston and New York in October 2015.
Here is a gallery of photos from the performances in the Ogstoun Theatre:
Before the Easter break, the Year 12 AS students presented their exam pieces to the visiting examiner from Edexcel. We don’t know the marks at this stage but we do know that the performances were packed out and that the audiences at the shows were extremely impressed with the quality of the work being presented.
This year we had three plays on offer: the hilarious, yet powerfully poignant ‘Bouncers’ by John Godber, an intense and experiential production of ‘Marat/Sade’ by Peter Weiss and an emotionally naturalistic production of Philip Ridley’s ‘Sparkleshark’.
A massive well done to all of the students involved. They all showed such maturity and hard work and the entire process of creating the plays was a joy from start to finish!
Below is a gallery of photos from the productions. Thanks as always to Mr Andy Thomas for the excellent images, copies of these are available from Calcots Photography: http://calcots.co.uk/
Here are a selection of pictures from our Christmas production of ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’. If you would like a copy of any of the pictures they are available from the very talented Mr Andy Thomas at http://calcots.co.uk
It was a great show and everyone worked so hard to get it all together in the midst of such a busy term. The audiences were lovely with full houses for every performance. Students, parents and guests all enjoyed the show and we were exceptionally pleased to welcome Tilda Swinton and her family, a really exciting moment for the cast – performing one of Narnia’s most beloved tales to such an extremely talented actress and perhaps the best known White Witch of all!
After all of the long months of planning and rehearsal, last week saw our production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe hit the stage! Whilst we await the pictures of the show itself, here’s a slideshow of pictures taken before the show and backstage. Thanks to Will B. for taking the shots, they give a bit of an idea of what it’s like to take part in one of the large scale productions for which Gordonstoun is so well known!
Images of the show itself will be up here very soon!
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