Shakespeare Schools’ Festival

Shakespeare Schools’ Festival Workshop

Middle Five Drama students put on a modern version of Twelfth Night.

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ll the Middle 5 GCSE Drama students performed the Shakespearian comedy for the Shakespeare Schools’ Festival, a celebration of the bard’s plays interpreted by different schools. We set our production in a modern setting, a night club, which we felt added to the confusion and chaos of the play. We experimented with the music, dance and colour of the 1970s and 80s and wanted to look closely at the idea of unrequited love: the comedy, sadness and angst. Using these themes, we started transferring the text on to the stage, employing techniques such as still images and ensemble work. To develop our work further, we took part in a workshop, learning new and exciting ways to play our characters and to use our bodies to portray different emotions, such as thinking of animals that best represented our characters. In doing this, we were trying to symbolise the night club, with slight nods to the setting of Shakespeare’s original play. We filmed our production, and our video entry was played in November, to a live audience.

Maya Dhanani M5 Aleph