Boarders delight audience with House Plays
The House Drama Competition was revived three years ago and has proven to be a great success with an eclectic and sometimes eccentric choice of plays! The plays provide the boarders with an opportunity to rehearse, direct and stage a play of their own choice as part of an inter-house competition.
Watching the fledgling directors attempt to get to grips with a script and then move it from page to stage is often a stressful and quite chaotic experience. But just as a week in politics is a long time, so it is when it comes to rehearsals!!
The plays are always adjudicated by a professional drama teacher or actor. This year, we were fortunate to have Mrs Gill Cuthbertson, Head of Drama at St Gerard’s in Bangor, as our adjudicator and she made the point that pupils’ participation in plays will always live in their memory for a lot longer than academic lessons!
The plays were:
Netherton presented an adaptation of Monty Python’s The Holy Grail
Directed by Hendrik Schabsky
Hathaway presented an adaptation of an episode from The Vicar of Dibley
Edwards presented Beauty is a Beast directed by Michelle Tan, Fabienne Brauns and Maya Lin
Beecholme presented Unman, Wittering and Zigo
Directed by the cast
Walshaw presented The Coarse Acting Play – The Cherry Sisters
Directed by Adriaan Gussmann
After the first performances, Mrs Cuthbertson gave her first adjudication, emphasising to the casts that the competition was not over and that she wanted to see three plays again, because she had not made a decision about which plays were going to get awards. She then asked to see the directors and gave them some notes of what she was expecting to see in the second performances – these were ideas to work and ways of tightening the performances.
Mrs Cuthbertson chose three plays for the Finals: Edwards, ‘Beauty is a Beast’, Netherton’s ‘The Holy Grail’ and Beecholme’s ‘Unman, Wittering and Zigo’. These plays provided a contrasting evening of drama, which began with Edwards’ pantomime. Michelle Tan directed a cast of thirty four and she is to be commended for the courage and daring that she showed in taking on such a massive theatrical project. This was a genuine ensemble production with some outstanding individual acting performances. In a contrasting genre and style, Beecholme chose to do a real play: one that required a lot of concentration from the actors and a strong ability to act convincingly in a piece which combines humour in a dark and even macabre way. The cast worked together brilliantly and the staging of the play made the malevolence powerful and realistic. Netherton opted for an adaptation of Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’. This is a difficult screenplay to stage, but they managed it and there was evidence of an inventive team at work here, led by Hendrik Schabsky whose brainchild the whole project was.
There are three cups available for the Competition, they were awarded to:
The Adjudicator’s Cup
was awarded to Beecholme for their production of Unman, Wittering and Zigo
The Outstanding Theatrical Achievement Cup
was awarded to Edwards House for their production of Beauty is a Beast
directed by Michelle Tan, assisted by Fabienne Brauns and Maya Lin
The Price Cup for the Best Play
was awarded to Netherton for Monty Python and the Holy Grail
directed by Hendrik Schabsky
Thank you to everyone who took part for a truly memorable evening and to Mr Lavin for all of his hard work.
Further pictures from the House Plays can be viewed at www.photoboxgallery.com/rps
A password is needed to access the gallery, please email HSGriffiths@rydal-penrhos.com quoting the Boarding House Plays and the password will be sent to you.
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