Bloxham School Second Form have spent the last few weeks rehearsing for a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Mill Arts Centre in Banbury on Friday 18th November.
On November 18th, our Second Form performers took to the stage at The Mill Arts Centre to perform in the national Shakespeare Schools’ Festival with their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Our cast were one of three groups performing on the evening and, whilst being the youngest group there, featured some of the strongest performances of the night. The group worked tirelessly as an ensemble and individually to create a visually stunning and emotionally connecting piece of theatre, supporting each other and acting like professionals on stage and off.
The cast had worked on this production in lesson times and were guided by Mr Parker as their Director and two of our own Sixth Form (Holly K and Amelia H) as Assistant Directors. With a short rehearsal period, it was imperative that all involved were extremely focused and lots of the work was undertaken individually outside of lessons; understanding the dialogue, running small sections of the script to refine their blocking and learning lines whenever possible, be it with their classmates, teachers, or by annoying parents by reciting lines en route to school every morning!
Some of the feedback from the SSF organisers and the audience in attendance paid testament to the hard work and strong skills on show. Some of the organisers’ comments included:
“The production had brilliant relationships from start to finish, from the first appearance of the fairies where Oberon (Geronimo) was a wronged and angry man; his relationship with Titania (Callie) was strong throughout.”
“The Mechanicals (Noah, Millie, Samuel, Amelia, Zoe and Aidan were very funny and especially when you embraced the comedy and relaxed to perform the play within a play. The way you purposefully made it appear like a ‘bad play’ was excellent.”
“Never before, even in my professional career, have I seen such funny fairies! When Titania first introduced Bottom (Noah) with a donkey’s head and the fairies look at each other dubiously; it was brilliant and a fantastic way to show the power of a performer with very few lines!”
Other schools performing commented upon the maturity of the performers playing the four lovers; Helena, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius (Issy, Lucy, Jonny and Will), who had amazing focus and didn’t shy away from the intimate moments, which was very impressive.
The performance was a great success, demonstrating how hard work and determination from a strong team ethic can result in a positive end product. Congratulations on a fantastic performance!