The Abingdonian 2019

53 www.abingdon.org.uk Summer Term Futures This year, the Drama Department put on a play called Futures , which everyone attending the two weekly Other Half drama sessions was invited to take part in. The show set out to examine what it’s like to be eleven or twelve years old, and explored the relationships between children of that age and their parents. The performance was inspired by the work of a youth theatre group in London called Company Three. That group’s objective is to create “a space in which young people can talk to adults, and in which adults will really listen.” The creation of the show involved a range of different research processes. Initially, students and parents were asked to complete questionnaires to gather information and build a picture of how young people and their parents communicate and interact. We then recorded interviews with Mrs Fever and began to create a script using the material we had collected. Rehearsals involved a lot of improvisation, during which, as a group, we were in charge of shaping the stage directions. Improvising stage layout was much harder than it sounds, as it involved a lot of cooperation from all the actors. We had to work on our communication skills as well as finding a way to agree on what was best for the group performance. This was an exercise in teamwork! Parents were also asked to send us pictures of themselves with their sons when they were babies. These were displayed on a screen above the actors at the start and the end of the performance. Mine was when I was in a Spiderman costume with my dad! It was fascinating to see the pictures of my friends as babies and how they had changed over the years. Later, we were asked to write down ten messages for our parents on pieces of card. At the end of the performance, we found our parents in the audience and stood in front of them. We then displayed each card to them in turn. Many of the messages were very personal and honest. The idea was to show our parents how we have been feeling but may not have been able to tell them face to face. Both of the two performances went very well. It was extremely scary because we all felt the pressure of performing in front of our parents, relatives and friends, and having to be so honest about our feelings. Everyone who took part had a really great time in the rehearsals and the final performance. I hope the parents loved it as much as we did. Harrison Cruikshank, 1PCWM