End of term...

Well that's us finished at GYT for another year.  We achieved a great deal in the last 12 months and all the young people involved should be very proud of the work that was done.  The highlight of the year was certainly our big show 'Norris Norrison - Manager of Norrisons', this continued our tradition of putting on shows based on ideas by the young people and developed in class.  We do this for a number of reasons, the main one being that it gives every young person at GYT a say in what the show that they are putting on will look like. We had great audiences and received fantastic feedback. It was crazy, it was wacky and it was very very funny!

Ruaridh Forde as Norris Norrison

Another highpoint for the senior class was the visit from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama's second year acting students.  They performed an engrossing version of Much Ado About Nothing that all the young people were involved in.  It really brought Shakespeare to life and showed that his plays aren't something to be scared of but that they are simply amazing stories that anyone can enjoy! Schools may not always make it seem that exciting but we hope that our seniors now have a different take on things.  Our senior tutor, Andrew McGregor, will be working with the RSAMD (soon to be the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) on their education output again next year so we hope to see a return visit.

Our seniors didn't just watch the play - they were part of it!

And to round of the year we had an excellent performance from our P1-7's for the National Theatre of Scotland's '5 Minute Theatre Project'.  This was a short play that was written and rehearsed in 4 weeks (which totals about 5 hours rehearsal time!) so the children did really really well to get it into good shape for their five minutes of fame! You can see the video here:

So, all in all, it has been a really fun year with a lot achieved.  We have welcomed a lot of new faces into our classes and they all contributed really well to the various projects we have been working on.  We tend to work on a show one year and then sit Trinity Guildhall Certificates the next, so that is what we shall be focusing on for next March or so.  These certificates are a great way to give everyone an opportunity to perform in a small group and receive an official reward recognising their hard work and talent.  They are loads of fun and are absolutely not scary!

Unfortunately we won't be having a summer school this year as our tutors are involved in various other projects for this year only (if you'd like to follow the blog of Andrew to see exactly what he's up to then you can find him here) but it will certainly be back up and running next year.

If you're not yet a friend of ours on Facebook then please have a look at our page - we have loads of great photos from years ago right up to last week.

Our classes return on the 20th August - have a great summer!

GYT

5 Minute Theatre

Our P1-7 classes combined last week to produce a 5 minute piece for the National Theatre of Scotland's 5 Minute Theatre project - check out more about it here.  They did really well, especially with only about 4 hours practice!  The piece was called 'The Magic Boat' and was written by our senior tutor Marianne Yeomans with music by Ryan Moir.  It tells the tale of some children who are awoken by a mysterious sound and end up voyaging across the sea in a ... you guessed it... magic boat!

We are waiting until the piece has been shown on the NTS website before we make it available, but if you miss it going out 'live' then we will link to it here on our blog.  It will be shown on the morning of June 22nd between 8am and 9am.

Here's a picture of Laura Smith, who played the part of a flower in the play!

Our senior class, after a very busy year, are now winding down and we are having a laugh doing Theatre Sports, very like the famous tv programme Who's Line Is It Anyway, and great fun.

Unfortunately, due the availability of the tutors, we won't be running a summer school this year, this is a big disappointment as they are always great fun and were the starting point for our show 'Norris Norrison' this year, but they will return bigger and better in the future.  Who knows, by then we might be in the lovely new Beacon Theatre!