I am the master of
splat. If you try and zip me, I’ll boing you back to base, shouting
freeze is my catchphrase. Role call for Play In A Week and Play In A
Day. Colourful clowning through to ensemble devising, scripting
scenes and free writing. The session starts on time, well, maybe
we’re a little behind but within those ninety minutes we can take you to
another world, another era, make your quake with fear or laugh you into tears
There’s a feeling in my
guts and heart that never went away because it was planted by the desire to
make something truly great with our ad hoc stage, ramshackle script with
limitations we didn’t even see beyond our enthusiasm of age. The next
Laurence Olivier isn’t waiting in the wings, but already strutting across a
stage, the next Shakespeare wrote her first scene at the age of
8. About a dinosaur.
Like bruised knees on the
workshop floor, these memories still feel raw. When I started Youth Theatre, as
it happened we didn’t have apps, no workshop rooms 1 and 2, just a cold,
creaky, unfurnished Ballroom. Just us,
and, as the Grey Lady is witness, the manifesto that if you think Youth Theatre
isn’t high quality, you’re not watching it properly.
Because if the highest
complement they can pay us is: “yeah they were pretty good for kids” then to
put it bluntly: They’re a bit thick.
The Studio is splashed with
Kafka, Brecht, political farces, swarms of bees, slave-master clowns and bombs
falling down. The main stage is accused,
watched, gets it’s sealegs, sings and breaks into another world. But as time goes, we remaking stately homes,
gardens, art galleries, museums, churches and car parks, each one the scene set
for making great art. If all the world’s a stage, we’re on a mission of
conquest through every line learnt, every accident report, every movement
sequence nailed, every prop bought.
There are two ways to
leave: one’s not pretty it involves aiming for that wall at full force
during a game of tig, missing, going too fast and smashing through glass.
The second is no less painful or monumental, it’s realizing it’s time to move
on and carry that love burning bright like a spotlight.
From the De Grey Rooms to
Palestine, changing the world one ticket sale at a time, make your voice louder
than mine, shout it so the Arts Council can hear ya…who loves Youth Theatre?
No comments:
Post a Comment