We are half way through Term 5 and it’s been a busy one! We kicked off with a fantastic full day workshop with West End performer Craig Mather. Craig, whose credits include Marius in Les Miserables (Queen’s Theatre) and Mole in The Wind in The Willows (London Palladium) ran a fun and high energy day with the whole Stagedoor gang, focusing on modern Musical Theatre. Highlight of the day was learning and performing the opening number from current Musical Theatre smash hit Hamilton.

The end of Week 1 saw the first year students travel to Cardiff for a day at the National Theatre Connections Festival. As part of the Connections project, all performing groups are given the opportunity to transfer their production to a partner theatre. We performed Chaos in February at the Everyman, and then transferred it to the Sherman in Cardiff as part of their festival. During the day, we got to watch two other performances of other connections plays, as well as take part in two workshops. The day was completed with a fun social event, which included food, a chance to hang out with the other young companies, and theatre quiz (we came second by only half a mark!) During the day, the Stagedoor group were praised on several occasions for their professionalism both in rehearsal and in performance, by employees of the Sherman as well as by staff who were accompanying other groups. The performance of Chaos was, of course, fantastic!

Another highlight so far was our performance on the Everyman main stage for the Everyman Theatre Association’s AGM. We were delighted to be invited back by the ETA, for whom we have performed four times over the last two years. The ETA do amazing work for the theatre, raising money as well as raising the profile of the theatre. Money raised by the ETA has been used for numerous projects, including offering bursaries for the annual Musical Theatre summer school. It really was a special thing to be performing on the beautiful main stage, and a real honour to entertain the ETA. We sang three songs from our upcoming musical The Battle of Boat, and finished with Seasons of Love from Rent, which seems, inadvertently, to have become “our” song.

As if that wasn’t enough, our brilliant first years have also been tackling one of the mandatory, externally assessed units for their BTEC qualification this term – Investigating Practitioners’ Work. This unit involves students conducting detailed research into two theatre practitioners and their work, focusing on a theme sent to us by the exam board. This year the theme was “Change of Direction” and students chose to research Frantic Assembly, Stephen Sondheim and Lin-Manuel Miranda. They then had to sit a written assessment in which they analysed how the work of their chosen practitioners fitted the given theme. Anyone who thinks that Performing Arts is an easy option needs to think again! Huge well done to the first years, who rose to the challenge brilliantly.

Second years haven’t escaped the challenge of external assessment this term either, and have been working on solo devised pieces for the Individual Performance Commission unit. As with the first year assessment, the second years have had to respond to a brief set by the exam board – in this case, to create a 5-8 minute solo performance which addresses the theme of conflict resolution. It’s a pretty tricky task – creating something original, which can be effectively performed by a an individual takes creativity and determination. Unsurprisingly, the second years have created a collection of outstanding, gut-wrenching and inspiring pieces, addressing subjects such as modern slavery, bullying, love, consent and the impact of social media. They will be performing on Monday morning and I can’t wait!

Alongside all of this, we have been working together to rehearse our musical – The Battle of Boat, which is promising to be an incredible show. Tickets are very nearly sold out, so if you’d like to come and see the South West Premiere of this fabulous show, you’d better hurry!