Enrichment Week - Community Theatre Project

Monday 18 July 2011

This year, the Drama Department ran a very successful community theatre group during the school’s annual Enrichment Week. Pupils in Years 9 and 10 had the opportunity to experience what life and the expectations are like when working at a professional level creating theatre for the local community. The week stared with a completely blank canvas, with the students from Deer Park interviewing pupils from Cirencester and Powell’s primary schools to see what the potential audience were interested in.

This was followed by working with a real professional theatre company ‘La Navet Bete’, (who will be playing at the Edinburgh Festival and who are currently on a tour of Mexico) to start devising and staging work for the primary audience using the material they discovered in the opening session.

The next three days were intensive devising and staging for the final performances and workshops with the primary pupils on Friday 8 July. All the time pupils were expected to meet professional standards of responsibility and engagement with the task. The deadline was met with many comments from primary colleagues as to the professionalism and commitment shown by our team.

Jenny Hatley, from Powell’s Primary School reflected, ‘We always look forward to taking part in drama with Deer Park. Our children love giving their ideas at the start of the week and they always enjoy seeing them come to life after the Deer Park students have done their performance. It isn’t just watching though, they take part in workshops too, giving a great all round experience for our pupils.’

‘Mr Anzalone and his drama team have linked up with our school for some years. The Year 3 children are always excited to see what the Deer Park students create from their ideas and this year was no exception. Our visit to Deer Park on Friday was fantastic, the best yet. Cirencester Primary School children not only watched their ideas brought to life but took part enthusiastically in a drama workshop, expertly run by the students. They have talked about it a lot and some have even decided that they will be going to Deer Park when it's time to move on to secondary school, said Heather Pilkington from Cirencester Primary School..

Participating pupils also felt they had gained from their experience:

‘It was a great experience. It was a very creative week. Using primary school pupils’ ideas led us to be creative and the week built up our friendships. I would definitely do it again,’ Chase Hollywood.

‘I had a lot of fun and it helped me build up my confidence. This has also helped me with my Drama GCSE.’ Zack Pooley.

‘It was good too because we learnt a lot of different techniques and it was good to be treated as if you were doing it in the real world. It helped with confidence and it helps you to know how important it is to meet different deadlines.’ Erika Bohling.

‘It was an experience that I will never forget and it has helped me realise how much I love drama. The week helped me to work with people I have never worked with before and put me into the positive state of mind to work as a team.’ Sarah Ayres.

by Vito Anzalone

Related Links:

• Le Navet Bete