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Sedgehill School’s Stage Debut!

 

Congratulations to the very talented group of budding young actors from Y9 and Y10 who performed to a sell-out audience this weekend at the Arcola Theatre.  The intergenerational project saw students team up with mature actors to work alongside Y-Touring Theatre Company to develop and perform two new-writing plays. Y9 students performed a rehearsed reading of ‘Don’t Be Shy’ by Judith Johnson and Y10 performed ‘Holborn, 1961’ by Ben Musgrave. Both productions looked at the issue of ‘telehealth’ and the progression of technology in health care, a subject all generations of the project have found fascinating to work on.

The cast of ‘Holborn,1961’ aged from 14 to 68 inspired playwright Ben Musgrave through a series of debates and theatre workshops in July 2011 before he spent the summer writing the play. The cast received the final edit after the October half-term and after two months of rehearsal the cast were ready to perform at the critically-acclaimed Arcola theatre in Hackney. 

‘Holborn, 1961’ had the feel of George Orwell’s 1984 with a 21^st Century twist. This was made even more impressive by the amount of input all the performers have had into the production. Bex Hand, Performing Arts Coordinator, who directed the project  found the project extremely rewarding, saying ‘I’m so proud of our students and the relationships they’ve built with the older actors. They really have astounded us with their initiative and maturity’.  

The Associate Director of Y-Touring Theatre Company Steve Byrne also praised the students from Sedgehill saying, “what performances the young people from Sedgehill School gave! They were cool, composed and seemed unfazed by the occasion, rising to the challenge to do great justice to these challenging plays”