DRAMA

Students in Year 12  are currently working on developing and rehearsing their group performance pieces for assessment next week. The students are required to devise an original 8-12 minute performance using an item from the NESA topic list as their initial stimulus. The group performances are quite diverse in both content and performance style and include a comic piece that tells us the story of a somewhat bedraggled company of Shakespearean actors who are desperately trying to find a new playwright to sustain them into the future before Shakespeare dies. Another darkly humorous piece explores just what lengths a funeral home will go to so that they maintain their profitability.

In their individual projects and performances one student has chosen to write a play that is a satirical examination of a former prime minister and their handling of disasters that impacted our community. It is set in a dystopian world where the past, present and future merge and collide in a way that challenges us to consider our own perspectives on the issues raised. Another student has selected costume design as their individual project or performance. They are designing Victorian style costumes for a range of characters in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. The other students are doing individual performances. They include pieces about Joan of Arc as imagined by a schoolgirl who helps her through a traumatic time, a young man with OCD and his first love, a young lady who is infatuated with cacti and her ex and a rather psychotic eastern European lady who is out for revenge for the injustices served upon her and her husband by his employer. All of the performances have a wonderful blend of humour, warmth and pathos. They really do explore the human condition and reveal the layers beyond the surface that perhaps we don’t take the time to consider in our own lives.

I congratulate and thank all of Year 12 Drama for their unbridled enthusiasm, commitment, camaraderie and collaboration, both in the classroom and beyond. You are outstanding leaders of both Drama and CAPA in our community. Thank you.