Year 5's evening of drama, ‘An Evening with Beasts’, was made up of three plays: ‘The Jungle Book’, ‘Frankenstein’, and ‘Wolf!'. Richard Tyrrell explains the ethos of these all-inclusive dramatic productions, which were performed to a packed house in the Millennium Hall.
The main objectives of the Year 5 production are to have fun, build confidence, and to stretch and challenge the children in a variety of ways. The bar was set particularly high this year, and casting was designed to challenge children to come out of their comfort zones.
Every child was on stage for the duration of this ensemble performance. This encouraged a sense of total involvement and teamwork, whether an actor had one line or thirty, resulting in a confident performance from all.
Year 5 used physical theatre to create houses, forests, all sorts of animals and fire, to name but a few of the many images seen on stage.
Each story was told with some rather abstract references to popular culture, and one or two in-jokes which added to the sense of fun.
As Year 5 rehearsed, we coached them on voices for volume, articulation, emotional expression and communication. The benefit of this work is already being seen as Year 5 practice their poems for the poetry competition. It is a pleasure to see quite dramatic improvements in vocal delivery, expression and confidence in many children. These important skills will set the children up for future school productions, and can also be carried over to other aspects of life.
The whole theme of the evening from the adults’ perspective, apart from the pleasure of seeing Year 5 perform, was to consider the meaning of the word ‘beast’. Are animals beasts, or can humans be beasts too? This in turn makes us consider society, order and civilisation. We think there was something for everyone in this show.
The evening was a great success, and I would like to congratulate Year 5 on their hard work, talent and skills learnt.
