Growtheatre YouthTheatre – Spring Term 2022
What a first six weeks it has been for us at Growtheatre! The Youth Theatre has brought so much laughter and fun to the woods and we can’t wait to come back for the next six!
Thank you to Maya, our young leader with the Junior Group, for sharing her thoughts on this half term.
In Juniors, we went back to some Growtheatre fundamentals – promenade theatre, and strong vocal skills. These are skills and techniques which I remember practising nearly 10(!) years ago when I first started at Grow, and I continue to use them today. Every week we have done a vocal warm up, practising clear enunciation and really good projection … it is so important to be heard clearly when you’re performing outside! We can already hear a difference in the Juniors’ performance voices. Rachel and I led the kids on a journey to the Troll King at the start of the term, showing them how to take your audience on a journey (promenade) and keep them safe while staying in character. It was fun to be in role, and lovely to see how it inspired them to make their own quirky guides! Each week they have built up their skills, slowly adding more detail to perilous journeys which have taken us through Candyland, and to meet Death himself! It is a joy to watch them perform, but also a joy to watch them understand how important it is to watch out for your audience’s safety when you’re moving them from scene to scene. And a joy to play lots of silly games too! I am amazed by their brilliant and enthusiastic acting every term, and Rachel, Antonia, and I are very proud of the fab performers they are becoming. We can’t wait to keep practising after half term and then lead you all to whatever exciting lands the Juniors decide on!
The Intermediates have excelled in learning about Promenade Theatre. They have been learning all about audience participation and how important it is that the audience has the best experience in a performance. They looked at travelling and incorporating the audience on their journey, making them feel like they are a crucial element to the piece. Each week they built up their skills, developed their knowledge and shared the work they have been creating with each other to inspire their peers. The group are so incredible at working as a team each week and being a really kind and welcoming group. Their work is so inspiring and no challenge is too big for them. Each Intermediate brings something different to the group which is what makes the group so special!
We gave the Seniors a new challenge this term of Playback Theatre! It was a theatre technique that a lot of the group had not come across before so it was great to watch them learn something from scratch! We did a lot of focusing around different techniques of Playback like Fluid Sculpture, Pairs, 3 Sentence Story, Tableau and more. Each week brought something different to the session, one of out favourite times is when we get to share stories! An important part of Playback Theatre is sharing stories so the actors can use them as inspiration for their improvisation. Each technique requires a slightly different attitude, which is something the Senior members had no problems in doing.
