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News and views from Bablake School
Issue 70 | Summer 2016
The Musicians
It’s always exciting when a new production is announced, but this time everyone was even more enthusiastic during auditions to find that The Musicians was part of the Connections programme of the National Theatre writes Oliver Brindley.
F
rom the very first readthrough we were all aware that if we did justice to this wonderful short play we stood a chance of performing it not only to school, or at the Belgrade (amazing in itself) but as part of a festival at the National Theatre! Those involved ranged from Shell pupils to members of the Upper Sixth and we quickly grew to love the play, its humour and superb writing giving everyone in the cast a moment to shine. Rehearsals started with many of the cast learning how to hold instruments correctly so that they could mime playing them as part of an orchestra! We quickly moved the performance from the realistic to the fantastic and we had great fun creating both robotic and balletic dance
sequences! All too soon it was time for the performance at school and the pressure was on as there was going to be a director from the National Theatre, Rosemary McKenna, in the audience. The cast and crew were thrilled by the positive feedback that Rosemary gave to us after the show and we were all determined to use her detailed notes to further improve the production before we took it to the Belgrade a few weeks later. The festival weekend at the Belgrade was amazing as we had the chance to see the other plays being performed and also attend some great workshops to sharpen our skills prior to our own performance! There was also a party which gave us the chance to meet those participating from other schools and theatre groups. Bablake’s The Musicians was the final performance of the festival (obviously saving the best until last!) and it was a real thrill for us all to be putting on a show on a professional stage! It was a wonderful experience to perform in front of a packed house and I think that we managed to put on our best performance! I certainly hope so, as Rosemary was once again assessing how we had developed our production so that she could report back to the National Theatre. We have been waiting patiently to see if we will be lucky enough to be selected for the National Theatre Festival; we know that nearly 500 groups have participated so we have to be realistic, but whatever happens we all know that we did our best and created something very special. I would like to offer huge thanks to Ms Farmer and the rest of the Musicians ‘family’ for making it an experience I will remember for a long time!
In this issue: Fun and games in the Library 2 Making news 3 Bishop John 4 Ride London 5 Bablake en France 6 RAF Cosford 7 Music scholars 8 Artistic notes 9 Design techies at work 10 Sport 12 Expedition Days 14 Staff news 15 A silver lining 15 Headmaster’s notes 16