Young REP: The New Term Begins

Two members of the Young REP talk about their first two weeks of term.

Hello I’m Heather, I am 17 years old and have been a member of the Young Rep for almost four years. I have participated in three shows with the Young Rep and have enjoyed every single one. The Young Rep is a truly wonderful, unique company, helping you to build confidence, try out new things and, most importantly to have a blast! Recently, I have joined the new Playwriting Group to try out something new for a change. I have only been to two sessions but I absolutely love it! Each member of the group is working towards writing a 30 minute play, and each week, we are given ways to achieve what we want out of our plays and discuss new ideas.

Something wonderful about the Playwriting Group is that no session is the same. Each week we look at new aspects and new challenges that we will come against when writing and how to tackle them. Last week we looked at the film Romeo and Juliet, and at how the original script had been used but the setting had been completely transformed to bring the story into modern day. We discussed how each scene of our short plays must have a change of some kind and had a try at re-writing one of our scenes to incorporate that. Then we wrote a monologue for a psychic, reading the tarot cards for the future of our central characters. At the end of each session, I always leave with pages of scribbled ideas in my notebook, my head full of inspiration and dying to just get home and do some typing!
The thing that I love about the Playwriting group is the fact that we are looking at a different aspect of theatre, not just acting but at creating the stories themselves.

The Young Rep presents a fantastic opportunity to get out there, meet new people and have a go at doing something totally different, you may find something new that you enjoy, just like I did with the Playwriting Group!

Hi, I’m Jessica.

I’ve done a lot of Young REP plays and at the moment we are doing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. My favourite performance that I have done with the Young REP was Oliver Twist because it was a lovely experience. It’s important that you pay attention in Drama and I’m really looking forward to doing Macbeth because I think it’s really scary with all the murders and ghosts.

This week we did some Drama exercises and played some games about Shakespeare so we did a lot for a 2hr session. I’m doing William Shakespeare in school and I think he is a brilliant playwright and was a fabulous inspiration.

Jessica, aged 12.