Exam Season Comes Early For Drama Students

Most people think that exam season is the summer months. For our A level Drama & theatre Studies students their final assessed practicals have been in the last week!

The students, all in their final year of the course, have split into three groups to devise and act a short drama piece of approximately 30 minutes duration. The students selected a range of themes to base their productions on.

One group entitled their production 'The Chapter of Dido' and it concerned the founder and first Queen of Carthage, based on an extract from 'Aeneid' by the Roman poet Virgil. Here's a photo below from the dress rehearsal of this production.

Another group selected the 2002 film 'The Magdalene Sisters', written and directed by Peter Mullan, about four teenage girls sent to a home for 'fallen' women maintained by individual religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Again, the photo below shows the great costumes and set from this production.

The final production was based on Margaret Atwood's novel 'The Handmaid’s Tale', which explores life in a Dystopian society where children are harvested from lower class fertile women, who are enslaved to supply the ruling classes. As you can see, good use of costume, set and lighting helped bring this to life!

Curriculum Leader for Drama is Diane Dodd and she told us how pleased she has been with the students work. "The students have worked for over a term on the practical devised exam, they have worked tirelessly to bring their material to the stage and have produced some highly effective and moving plays," she explained. "They have researched a wide range of contemporary practitioners who are themselves renowned creative adaptors and have explored a wide range of acting and staging methods. The process is both physically and intellectually stretching and the students are now well-prepared for the next step at university."

Many of the students on the A level Drama & Theatre Studies course are also involved with the annual college production, which takes place in July. Entitled ‘Selkie’, the production is set in Cornwall and interweaves the past with the present, the ordinary with the supernatural, locals and seasonal migrants on one fine day in June. Selkie blends folk lore and contemporary lives and utilises live music, storytelling and dance to amuse and transport you. It will be performed at 7.00pm on Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th July in the College’s theatre. Tickets will be available after Easter, priced £6 for adults and £3 for concessions, by calling 0121 704 2581.