On Thursday 10th May, over 140 Y9 & Y10 drama students enjoyed an interactive and highly engaging morning with the Young Shakespeare Company, taking a look at the play of Romeo and Juliet.

The group of 5 actors began with an interactive workshop explaining the options for setting the play, and demonstrated stage fighting and interesting techniques to look at character development. They followed the workshop with an emotional and energetic abridged performance of Romeo and Juliet, choosing to set this in a modern school which was instantly relevant to our students and really helped their understanding of themes and character.

Following the performance students were able to ask questions of the actors, such as ‘how long did you rehearse for this?’, ‘what do you do to be able to play multiple characters?’ and ‘how do you make yourself cry on stage?’.

Here is what some of our students said: 
‘Clever and different’ 
‘A very powerful performance, really emotive’
‘Enthusiastic acting’
‘It was an immersive performance due to the actors appearing behind us’
‘It was really funny in parts’
‘Loved their energy’
‘We could understand what was happening even if we didn’t understand the language – it was very creative’
‘Really unique performance, I liked how it was set in a school’

We would very much like to thank this brilliant group of actors for coming into school  #RomeoandJuliet @youngshakeco