Drama and Entertaining

Drama and Entertainment

Jodie Connor and Josephine Emmett

SECTV Production 2021 is a historical year for the Drama department as the students of Year 11 Drama are part of the first combined St Joseph’s and St Edward’s senior Drama class. The students shared their lessons between the schools benefitting from both schools’ resources. Students have showcased their talents throughout the course by creating original pieces of theatre and design. The Year 11 Drama class even managed a sneaky excursion to the Sydney Theatre Company to watch ‘Playing Beattie Bow’ just before lockdown hit.

Drama in Action Year 12 Drama worked diligently on their Individual Projects and Group Project performances. The Group Project is an opportunity for students to work together to create a unique piece of theatre that is 8-12 minutes long. The Group Project performance demonstrates a student’s ability to work successfully as part of a team, use their flair and originality and their performance skills. Amazingly this year, the Year 12 Drama Night was performed in front of a live audience with great success, just before lockdown. Unfortunately,

the students were unable to perform their Group Project performances to HSC examiners due to the restrictions. This meant that students delivered another first for the Drama department, a directorial concept Group Project.

Year 11 Entertainment produced some interesting live radio programs that demonstrated their knowledge on audio systems. They also gave up their time to work backstage to support the Year 12 Music and Drama students on the performance nights. The Year 12 Entertainment class demonstrated a culmination of their abilities in a simulated live performance of Macbeth. This task uses the skills and knowledge of almost two years of study and allows the students to showcase the skills they have built throughout the VET Entertainment course. The students were responsible for acting, staging, lighting, audio, and vision for the production. All students demonstrated excellent knowledge of the Entertainment industry and completed the task with maturity and aplomb.

Now in its second year as a subject offering, Screen and Media gives students a chance to immerse themselves into film making. The current Year 11 class have completed a safety video, a documentary, a feature story and are currently working on a personal interest project. Year 12 Screen and Media have been working hard to keep SECTV running whilst completing their senior studies. Their final assessment focused on a live production of a ‘Morning Talk Show’. This has involved the students working in groups to prepare and film a talk show. The studio was the College green screen room and some segments were filmed “on location”. A highlight this year was a combined Year 11 and 12 incursion with Jason van Genderen from Treehouse Creative on mastering the iPhone as a device to make feature films.

Thankfully our students were agile as we headed into home based learning again, having our Term Three lessons via Microsoft Teams and Canvas. I would like to thank the students for their continued ability to develop their creative, critical thinking and collaboration skills whilst in an online environment. I want to acknowledge their perseverance and sense of humour during this time.

A big ‘thank you’ to Mrs Emmett for her work within the department and on St Edward’s College Television (SECTV). Mrs Emmett was key in driving SECTV this year. The College student leaders and students of Entertainment and Screen and Media, worked together to produce a live to air TV production with students presenting, operating cameras, vision switching and managing the floor. It continues to be a huge success with highlights being the ‘Weekend Weather Watch’. We hope that SECTV stays a part of the College community for many years to come.

Control Box - Theatre Drama Class Control Box - ERC