Royal Shakespeare Company creates its first youth ensemble
29 July 2008
22 young people, aged between 13-18 years, from across England will join together for two weeks this summer to form the first RSC Youth Ensemble.
The RSC's Youth Ensemble is made up of young people from secondary schools from nine of the regions of the country involved in The RSC's Learning and Performance Network *. Through their schools' engagement with the Network, these young people have developed a passion for Shakespeare in performance.
The students will come and form an acting company in Stratford-upon-Avon, living and working in the RSC's home town for two and half weeks in August. There are young people coming from Newcastle, Manchester, Oxford, Norfolk, London and several other regions in between. They start rehearsals on 7 August and their rehearsal period culminates in an hour long performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the stage of The Courtyard Theatre at 4pm on Friday 22 August.
By living and rehearsing together, the group will experience the benefits and challenges of ensemble working. With professional director Aileen Gonzalves they will rehearse an edited version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to be performed in front of a public audience.
During their rehearsal period, they will meet members of the RSC acting company - including members of the current A Midsummer Night's Dream company. They will also have workshop sessions with guest practitioners, including BBC television and radio presenter, Hardeep Singh Koli, who recently compered the RSC's Regional Schools Celebration in The Courtyard Theatre.
Jacqui O'Hanlon, who was recently appointed as the RSC's Director of Education (she has been the RSC's Acting Director of Education for the past year) said: 'We are delighted to be welcoming this very special group of young people to Stratford to form our very first youth ensemble. We feel they are an incredibly strong company who are going to become wonderful ambassadors for Shakespeare in their schools and regions.”
Jacqui added: 'Often the student we have chosen is not the student the teacher expected us to choose. The RSC's children's casting director came out to the different schools and regions and helped us in the very difficult selection process. However, what all of the students have in common is an ability to connect with Shakespeare's language and stories and an excitement about working on his plays in performance. We're equally excited about the prospect of working with them.'
The first RSC Youth Ensemble includes:
Becky - aged 15 from an inner city school in Manchester
'We spotted Becky playing Chorus in her schools production of Henry V. Before starting work on the play, Becky thought that Shakespeare had no relevance to contemporary life. She now speaks with great passion about how Shakespeare has changed her and had a profound effect on her thinking. She now feels she understands what it means to fight for your country and also understands why people might choose to do this. She wants to continue to read and study Shakespeare and is thrilled to be coming to spend two weeks in Stratford to work on A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
Benham - aged 17 from a boys' school in Middlesex
'We encountered Benham in a piece inspired by Romeo and Juliet that he performed with a group of boys from his school. He is an Iranian refugee who arrived in England 12 months ago. He has chosen to live on his own (although he could have gone into foster care) and is very independent. He has a great love of literature and his main goal is to become a fluent English speaker. Interestingly, Shakespeare held no fear for Benham - it was only as difficult as the rest of the English language to learn. He was chosen to join the youth ensemble mostly because of his fantastic commitment to the play and to the other boys he was performing alongside. He knew where everyone should be at any point on stage and regularly helped the other boys find their way through the performance. It was incredibly frightening for him to perform a play in a foreign language - and he did it brilliantly. He is amazed at the opportunity he has to come to Stratford and live with a group of other young people for two weeks.'
Luke - aged 17 from a boys' school in Middlesex
'We met Luke through the same production of Romeo and Juliet. The school that Luke and Benham attend is very tough and the boys were all sceptical about doing a project around Shakespeare - they felt it was boring and irrelevant. Luke motivated this highly reluctant group of year 12 boys who wouldn't normally touch Shakespeare with a barge pole. He spoke passionately about the connection between the themes in Romeo and Juliet and the gang culture the boys experience every day. He inspired his peers to such an extent that their performance of Romeo and Juliet was chosen to perform on The Courtyard stage.'
Tapiwa - aged 15 from a comprehensive school in Oxfordshire
'Tapiwa is from Zimbabwe. She has only been in the country for 12 months and is still learning the language. We encountered her in her schools performance inspired by Hamlet. She has been incredibly enthusiastic about her work on Shakespeare - whilst also getting to grips with the English language. She showed an extraordinary level of commitment when working on her schools performance - and she wove traditional songs from Zimbabwe into the final show. She has a beautiful singing voice and we hope we will be able to utilise this gift in our production of Dream.'
Tickets for the Youth Ensemble Production of A Midsummer Night's Dream are available from the RSC Box Office – 0844 800 1114.
Further information
For more information please contact Nada Zakula on 01789 412622 (mobile: 07831 766086) or nada.zakula@rsc.org.uk or Dean Asker (dean.asker@rsc.org.uk) on 01789 412660 (regional enquiries).
Notes to Editors:
*RSC Learning Network - a new way of working
In creating the RSC Learning Network, the Company has realised a long-standing ambition to create an infrastructure, which facilitates a deep and sustainable engagement with the RSC's work for both teachers and students. The aim is to ensure that all young people have a positive experience of Shakespeare at school. We hope to achieve this by:
- Providing schools in England with a sustained and meaningful relationship with the RSC
- Providing innovative, lasting, continuing professional development opportunities for teachers
- Significantly increasing the numbers of students who understand, enjoy and are able to explore Shakespeare's plays and language through performance
- Targeting schools who would otherwise find it difficult to access our work
- Undertaking a rigorous evaluation of the Network so that the findings benefit all other areas of our work
The Learning and Performance Network Programme
Schools joining the Learning and Performance Network embark on a three year structured partnership with the RSC. They become a coordinating school for their area, hosting INSET days, coordinating a regional festival and supporting and disseminating good practice to their partner schools.
The aim is that the three-year programme will contribute to stronger relationships between partner schools as well as establishing a longer-term relationship between all schools in the region and the RSC.
Date of issue: 29 July 2008
