We have just finished a typically busy week, during which the Stagedoor students took part in workshops with professionals, watched a sell-out show at the Everyman and completed, to an excellent standard, their latest assessment. This week, more than most, has been absolute proof of why the Stagedoor approach allows students to achieve more highly than if they were taking the same course at a school or college.

Our working week started, as is the usual routine this term, with a workshop with Ria Keen, our singing tutor. This week, Ria started looking at register and range, and we spent our three hour workshop focusing on chest voice. The girls worked very hard indeed – Ria kept telling the group that it was “easier for the boys”, but the girls are looking forward to getting their own back, eventually, when we move onto the head voice. Having spent last term’s sessions with Ria working mostly on musical theatre songs, it was good to have a go at something completely different, and the session finished with a great performance of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changing. Next week – middle voice.

On Wednesday, we had a change of scenery and met at Henley Bank High School in Brockworth so that we could make use of their dance studio, and had a half-day workshop with Josh Patel, an actor, practitioner and physical theatre expert. Josh worked with the group on lifts, tumbling and Frantic Assembly inspired techniques, before working on a section of our National Theatre Connections play, The Changing Room. It was pretty challenging, and definitely exhausting, but an inspiring day with a really cool young actor.

On Thursday, the whole group visited The Everyman for the matinee of The Play That Goes Wrong – a hilarious farce about, you’ve guessed it, a play that goes wrong. The play is touring the UK at the moment, and its run at the Everyman was sold out, so it was really exiting to be able to watch it.

We finished the week with an assessment – this is, after all, an academic 6th Form course. The students had worked in small groups to develop a presentation for their Skills for Live Performance unit, about the role of the performer, and each group shared their work on Friday afternoon. One of the best things about Stagedoor is the constant access to theatre professionals, and all of the students were able to talk in a great deal of detail about the knowledge and understanding they have gained since beginning the course, in order to achieve excellent results in this assessment. Whilst theoretical research can help students find the correct information for their assessments, there really is no substitute for real life experience, and listening to the students present their work on Friday afternoon really proved this.