NEWSLETTER Bridgnorth, Wolverhampton & Telford and Wrekin
NEW YORK, TELFORD & AN AFTERNOON IN WOLVERHAMPTON All equally exciting for us as we move to a bigger structure for PQA in the area with 2 new academies following closely on the heels of our trip to New York in February. We will be travelling with 32 of the older students from our current academies over 5 days of half term, taking in the sights as well as undertaking workshops with industry leaders in MT and TV. Closely following on from that will be the launch of PQA Telford, a launch with great potential for us as we have a fantastic location set up with a wonderful theatre space for us to use. We already have ideas for something spectacular there if we can sort the logistics of it. For PQA Bridgnorth the next few months will be quieter to allow the staff time to teach after a few very busy years. Besides running the Summer Songs concert again we plan to keep the first few months clear of performances to allow students the fun of experimenting in classes without the pressures of a show hurtling towards them. PQA Wolverhampton will begin the year preparing for the West End which has already begun casting ready for May. After that we will use the rest of the summer term to enjoy learning some skills as the pressure is off and the teachers have the time to concentrate on the techniques. Casting is an interesting process, students often believe that they can just turn up and rely on their 'ability' to get through. They couldn't be more wrong, when it comes to shows such as the West End or our Panto we wish to put forward our strongest and best performers, this means those who commit. If they don't show us that they... (cont p2)
(Cont from p1)...can be bothered to learn the song for audition then they are most certainly not going to deserve a main role in the show. Being a member of Red Group is not a free pass to getting what you want, Several times recently we have cast blue group members over red group, not because we have a quota or a set number but because they have auditioned better prepared, and showing more effort than reds. An audition is an opportunity to show what it is that you can bring to the role, students seem to forget this and think that simply standing and reciting the lines or singing the song without any characterisation is going to be enough. Students who shine add something to the process, they use the space, think about what the character is doing during the scene, fix where the person they are speaking to is on the stage and demonstrate that by their motions, and crucially - in a musical theatre audition - they ACT. Obviously the expectations are different at different ages, partly these are set according to the groups but often it is by reference to the age of the student or how long they have been with us, we expect more from those with most experience. We sometimes come to an audition with an idea of who is right for the role but nothing gives us more pleasure than an unexpected performance that makes us rethink, but you will not do this without being fully prepared.
2016 PANTOMIMES REPORT Even from 5 weeks out it was apparent that this year was going to be different. Most students were off book by that point and although there was a lot of work to do on musical numbers loads of progress had been made, even with the delays caused by red group students being involved in RADA Shakespeare exams we were ahead of schedule. We decided that as part of our improvements to each show we would invest in backdrops for each venue, these can be hugely expensive but we were lucky to find suppliers locally hiring at a (sort of) reasonable cost. These add greatly to the whole ambience of the show helping to elevate it to a more professional level. We were fortunate again to be able to hire in Brad Felton, a professional sound and lighting engineer who not only brought his expertise but also some much needed sound equipment for Wolverhampton. A significant amount has been spent on costumes, all good quality items that can be used again and again while huge efforts went into producing chorus items from scratch, many hours with the glue guns and various decorating items. Thanks got to Sheila, Sam, Jackie, Nicola, Jen and Jason for their efforts, and especially to Marguerite who spent hours on the forest shirts for Bridgnorth. A special note is that PQA Bridgnorth achieved Trinity Group Performance grade 5 with Distinction for their Panto.
PQA News Last year we celebrated our 5th birthday at PQA Bridgnorth, quite a milestone in a small market town. It's been a steep learning curve for us and recently we had the unusual experience of a phone call asking for advice on running academies from a chap who ran a drama school our son attended 10 years ago. How times change. PQA Wolverhampton launched 1 year later and celebrates it's own 5th Birthday in May. It is a sign of our progression and confidence in the academies that we run that this year we have 2 new introductions to our stable in Wolverhampton PM and the all new Telford & Wrekin academies launching in March. Wolverhampton AM is almost full with spaces only in Green Group, over the first few weeks of 2017 we will have lots of tasters attending, we had over 60 enquiries in the first few days of the year, many will be invited to either the PM launch or to one of the other locations while some will be joining us to fill the few spaces we have. In addition we run our first major PQA Trip with 32 students travelling to New York in February along with 6 staff. This is a hugely exciting innovation for us, the first time that we have run a trip abroad and the first time that students have been away overnight. This is going to be fun!!!! Read more below. Building on the success of our summer songs show in Bridgnorth in 2016 and our Pantomimes we are considering a new style of Christmas show for 2017, we have had 2 very busy years culminating in PQA Wolverhampton AM's trip to the West End in May 2017. We believe that it would be good to do something a little different which could include everyone from all 4 academies with several performances of the same show over a weekend. This is in the early stages of planning at the moment but ideas are coming together. PLEASE NOTE One change to how we will run is that with so many students in 4 locations we cannot continue to be available 24/7. From today we will be available in normal office hours (ie 9am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday and also on Wednesday evenings until 7pm. Any communications between Saturday 6pm and Tuesday 9am will be dealt with at the earliest opportunity. Obviously emergencies are excepted.
New York 2017 A brand new departure for us is a trip to New York with 32 older students to take part in workshops and to see a Broadway show. We have never before had students away overnight so we may as well break that duck with a good one. Students will take part in some fantastic workshops, see the sights and see School of Rock, the new sensation on Broadway. A brief itinerary is shown below. Monday. Tuesday
Leave at 5am...fly to NY.....evening visit to Top Of The Rock AM.Living the music workshop. PM The Singer and Musician Workshop Evening School of Rock Broadway show!!! Wed AM TV Workshop, on screen acting PM Circle Line tour Thusday AM Empire State Building some leisure time then xfer to airport Friday Return Home While in NY students will be staying at West Side YMCA, just off Central Park with stunning views of the city and breakfasts will be taken at a local Diner to get the full NY experience.
2018 Trip!!! We are proud to announce that our 2018 trip will be a 6 night performing arts trip to Lake Guarda in Italy. We hope to make this open to students aged 10-18years. More details will be in a special email to follow after the launches of our new academies in March. We will apply our usual 'fair is fair' approach and allocate equal number of places to each academy taking part, we will then offer any unused places out afterwards. This promises to be a really exciting opportunity for students
Poppets Poppets Wolverhampton Due to increasing demand we are going to expand poppets this term by firstly adding in an assistant teacher which will allow us to move to classes of 16 children and then by adding in a later class too should there be sufficient demand. The initial larger classes will begin on January 28th. I will have leaflets available at reception, if you can take these to your child's school and distribute then please pick up some and take with you.
POPPETS This term at poppets will be mainly for teaching with a small performance either at Easter or in the summer depending on the teachers views. They were all involved in the Pantos and which obviously takes up a lot of time and doesn't allow for much freedom to teach, the poppets can now have lots of fun learning new skills and expressing themselves without the pressure of a performance. Wel done to our fabulous Bridgnorth Poppets who attained their Young Performer Bronze Trinity Award for their performance in the Pantomime this year joining Wolverhampton's team who got theirs back in March.
PQA Wolverhampton AM Page The Lazy Ace May 7th 2017 Written especially for PQA the show is set in 1950’s Las Vegas and tells the story of Angel Applewood, a singer who arrives in the city to ‘become a star’.
Trinity Exams. Last year we took Trinity exams in March with students taking both MT and Drama assessments. With Lazy Ace approaching we will not be in a position to do the same this year as we will be concentrating on rehearsals. I will let you know after the West End how we accomplish the Trinity exams this year.
Day to day PQA She runs into a cast of characters around the The Sneaky Slammer Casino including Macy DeLacy (the current aging star), Jakey Ground, Chip Buddy and more. I am very much looking forward to taking new students to The West End and also a chance for those who performed in Fright Night to experience a different theatre as this year we will be performing at The Shaftsbury Theatre. It is a huge operation to get this show set up and everyone down there on the day but we do our best to make it as much fun as we can, even including a handout for parents with a guide on things to do near to the theatre during the afternoon. I will get on to sorting coaches etc in the next few weeks. The Summer edition of this newsletter will include lots of information and you will receive regular emails too.
From March Julian and Marguerite will be running 3 academies simultaneously during the morning. Even we can’t be in 2 places at once and so we are reorganising slightly to accomodate this. J & M will move around the academies but will ensure that one or other is at PQA Wolverhampton at some point during the morning. Reception for the academy will be manned by Jordan, an ex-student who you will all recognise and Mat will become Vice-Principal for the academy. You will see no difference when you attend, if you have any queries please speak first to Jordan.
NEW style film classes Mat and I have had lots of discussions about how best to improve film & TV classes and we have begun to trial a new format, I believe it is a big improvement on the old and certainly the classes looked better over the past few weeks
PQA Wolverhampton PM Launch Day March 4th We will have a full team on hand to make for as exciting an experience as possible, regular students from the morning academy will be in attendance to explain and guide new students while the usual team will be running the lessons. Starting out afresh gives us the opportunity to revisit earlier work and try out new ideas while retaining the PQA feel throughout. As of Christmas we have a lot of interest with nearly 30 potential students registered to attend the open day before the major publicity has begun. We will follow up the early work with leafletting into schools, billboards and radio adverts along with posters on buses too. Radio and buses has always been a strong marketing method for our locality and their launch just a few weeks before the academy begins should mark a surge in enquiries.
Meet the team.
Launch Day
Please click on the link to our website to read all about the teachers who will be working with your children at PQA Wolverhampton afternoon academy. https://www.pqacademy.com/ academy_locator/wolverhampton/ The same team will be running the afternoon classes as the morning so there will be continuity throughout. Because every student is new we will begin with classes designed
Our special launch day will begin with potential students arriving at 1.45pm and being booked in and assigned to their age groups by staff and helpers. We will introduce everyone to the team and the assistants for the day and tell you a little about PQA and what we locally do for your children. The children will then go to shorter versions of the classes where they will be introduced to the subjects and given an opportunity to have some fun in the classes while parents can wander around and see what is going on. We will gather everyone together at the end for a quick talk. Assistants and current morning students will be on hand throughout to answer any questions and to assist with sign ups.
Poppets Poppets are our special classes for the wonderful 4-5 year olds, they only attend for 1.5 hours and so we will run all classes for them during the morning sessions. Should demand become very high then an afternoon session can be
WIN!!! One student who signs up on the launch day will be the lucky recipient of a FREE TERM at PQA. The name of this student will be drawn from a hat and their payments will be deferred until the beginning of the second term (in reality the September term). This will ONLY apply to those who sign up on the open day.
PQA Bridgnorth Page A good year. 2016 has been a good year at Bridgnorth. Numbers have increased with an average of more than 65 students now, beneficial to students because it increases the opportunities to work with different characters. The West End show was hugely successful as was the Panto and students have passed their performance exams at both level 3 and 5. In addition many passed RADA Shakespeare awards including at Gold level, a huge achievement. Summer Songs at St Leonards was a great show with some fabulous individual performances and everyone enjoyed the more sophisticated approach to the event. 2017 sees a more pared back structure as we give the staff some long awaited teaching time. Certainly from Christmas to Easter we plan to have no performances to allow the staff the freedom to concentrate on skills and technique. While the summer term will also be quieter we will continue thinking about the 2017 Christmas show, we have in mind something a little different, more news in due course. Poppets has been attracting a lot of enquiries recently, we will have to make a decision as to whether to expand the group with a new assistant or to run a second class at 11.30am. We will see what the actual uptake is and let everyone know in due course.
Meet Ruby Ruby will be joining PQA as our Front Of house receptionist from February 2017. She attended The Endowed School and has recently returned from a world trip. With performing arts experience at school she understands the academy and will be the first port of call for your questions when Julian or Marguerite are not at the academy. We hope that you will all make her very welcome.
Day to day PQA From March Julian and Marguerite will be running 3 academies simultaneously during the morning. Even we can’t be in 2 places at once and so we are reorganising slightly to accommodate this. J & M will move around the academies but will ensure that one or other is at PQA Bridgnorth at some point during the morning. Reception for the academy will be manned by Ruby who is introduced above while we will appoint a Vice-Principal for the academy. You will see no difference when you attend, if you have any queries please speak first to Ruby.
WELCOME TO PQA Telford & Wrekin AM Launch Day March 18th We will have a brand new team ready and waiting to make this a day to remember, loads of exciting, hands on experience to introduce the new students to the disciplines and plenty of information for everyone with special assistance from PQA Bridgnorth students too.
Our first appointments I am delighted to welcome Katie as our lead for MT at Telford & Wrekin. Please visit the website via the link below to read her biography. Also joining us is George, a veteran of more films than most of us have watched; he writes, acts and directs and so brings a wealth of experience to PQA. His plans for Film & TV are really exciting and we should have lots of fun in making them real.
POPPETS
We plan on launching Poppets classes at the same time as the main academy on 18th March. Poppets have their own special 90 minute classes with a focus on having fun while learning acting, singing and dancing techniques.
WIN!!! One student who signs up on the launch day will be the lucky recipient of a FREE TERM at PQA. The name of this student will be drawn from a hat and their payments will be deferred until the beginning of the second term (in reality the September term). This will ONLY apply to those who sign up on the open day.
Visit Our Website Click here to read all about our academy and teachers.
https://www.pqacademy.com/academy_locator/telford-wrekin/ Please bookmark us and visit often to read news and keep up to date with the academy.
Hall Of Fame
Joel Sheldon WOLV, Mabel Edwards and Shay Gutteridge BRID were all featured in the press for their parts in The Girl With All The Gifts movie with Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton‌ The movie got loads of press attention and was featured not just in the print press but on TV too.
Maisie Clayton and Jamie-Lee Bernard were also in the film as were another 18 PQA students from the Midlands Area.
Imogen Fox was chosen to shoot a short film in Birmingham recently along with students from other academies. Not the best company that we have worked with unfortunately but still a great experience for her.
Josh Griffiths helped out earlier in the year when we were approached on a Friday night to see if we could perform at a Wolves home game, the booked professional act had pulled out at the last minute. As it was the middle of a holiday at the time it was going to be impossible to get a group of students together and so Josh stepped in and performed to the crowd.
Angel from PQA Wolverhampton was recently awarded her violin grades by non other than Kristian Thomas Olympic gymnast from Rio 2016. Congratulations to her, a special experience.
Send us your performing news Send your childs performing news and a photo and we will include it here. The more we get the better, we would like to fill a page.
Dates for your diary 7 January 20 February 25th Feb 4 March 1.30pm 18 March 1 April 22 April 7 May 29 July
TERM BEGINS New York Trip ACADEMIES CLOSED Wolverhampton PM launch Telford & Wrekin Launch TERM ENDS Summer TERM BEGINS West End Show WOLV AM TERM ENDS
New Kit As part of keeping the academy up to date and giving students the best opportunities we try every year to buy some new equipment. Shown below are some of the investments we have made over 2016, most over the Christmas break. With 2 new academies coming soon our spend on new equipment will increase dramatically in the coming months. The biggest outlay this year was costume, with a new West End show we had to create a whole new look and so had to produce costumes for everyone, more than 50 students while the items for the Panto were more staple items that will turn up again and again.
See your principal for more information
Term Dates •Spring 2017
7 January
to
8 April
•Summer 2017
29 April
to
29 July
•Autumn 2017
2 Sept
to
16 Dec
•NOTE....ALL ACADEMIES CLOSED FEBRUARY 25th
The Future for PQA PQA as a whole has begun a period of change as we begin to expand and consolidate over the next few years. We will be expanding rapidly with new academies and afternoon launches coming at the rate of some 40 a year for a while, there will also be launches of PQA Plus for 16-25 year olds trialled in some areas. This Christmas saw the first Panto under the guise of PQA Productions, a full professional panto at a theatre like Wolverhampton’s Grand, we have a special department set up to run this and next year will do more, who knows in time we may see one with one of our own students as a star. The West End experience has now expanded to 2 theatres with PQA Wolves being amongst the first to perform at The Shaftsbury Theatre in May 2017. We have other exciting projects coming too, regional shows similar to the West End experience, the first being tested at The Alex in Birmingham late in 2016. In addition our own stable of PQAs will expand offering us the opportunity to do things differently and reinforcing our whole offering to you. With 4 academies and another location we have the opportunity to put on our own large scale shows utilising increased numbers to enable us to consider better venues and even reproducing the West End type of show in our own locality.
Principal:
Julian Elcock
e-mail:
Bridgnorth@pqacademy.com
Mobile:
07838 11 51 52