Tag: performance

Blog: Director’s Decisions

Posted: | by CFT | Filed under: Guest bloggers, Pass it on | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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First read-through of the scripts with the Young Playwrights, actors and director.

I am delighted to say that we now have three brand new short plays that will be performed in our Out Of The Archive series in the Minerva Theatre in October. The three pieces have been inspired and informed by the work of the Youth Theatre and:

– A 1960s article regarding what you should and should not wear to CFT (see below)

– Press cuttings, reviews and production notes relating to the 1970s production of Chekov’s The Seagull

– Letters written to the young cast of the 1986 production of Jane Eyre

The result is a selection of plays containing very human relationships and feelings that we can all relate to – love, inferiority, and fear – all explored using humour and truth.

Continue reading “Director’s Decisions” →

Blog: Writing Pass It On!

Posted: | by CFT | Filed under: Guest bloggers, Past events | Tags: , , , , , ,
Chichester Festival Youth Theatre members performing in Pass It On!
Chichester Festival Youth Theatre members performing in Pass It On!

I share a long history with Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT). I was part of the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre (CFYT) for 10 years and we performed numerous productions during this time. I acted, sang, danced and played in the band. I took part in carnivals, concerts, street performance and took part in creative workshops about performance poetry, set design and circus skills.

So it felt natural that, after my English Degree, I would gravitate back towards the Theatre. I joined the Young Playwrights Programme and then the Advanced course at CFT which was run in partnership with New Writing South. The course was brilliant, inspiring and covered a wide range of topics. We explored writing dialogue, characters, plots, genres as well as having theatre visits, discussions and visiting writers talk to us. One of my pieces, Occupied (2012), was performed in the Theatre on the Fly, whilst my other short plays, The Knock (2011) and First Visit (2010), were performed in The Minerva Theatre. Continue reading “Writing Pass It On!” →

Blog: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre – inspired by the Archive

Posted: | by CFT | Filed under: Guest bloggers, News from the archive | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Archive document about the Festival Theatre Cricket Match which has inspired Kates Youth Theatre groups.
Archive document about the Festival Theatre Cricket Match which has inspired Kates Youth Theatre groups.

As a Youth Theatre Leader at Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, my challenge this term is to encourage a group of 14 and 15 year olds to create some interesting pieces of theatre using historical stimuli – not as easy as it sounds, but certainly a lot of fun!

I run sessions for two Year 10 groups and have chosen two stimuli from the archives: correspondence regarding a charity cricket match between Chichester Festival Theatre and the RSC in 1986 and letters containing information for young people participating in a professional production of Jane Eyre in the same year.

I began by thinking of exercises that would allow Youth Theatre members to create performances based on this particular material. Cricket is an especially difficult topic with which to inspire teenage girls (and some boys). Introductory sessions included creating freeze frames to represent different stages of a cricket match, flowing between each one and moving to the sounds of Soul Limbo – a classic cricket theme. Following this, the freeze frames were combined to create whole group images of a cricket match thinking predominantly about clear body positioning and facial expressions.

Continue reading “Chichester Festival Youth Theatre – inspired by the Archive” →