Cranford Review / March_2018

Shakespeare
Schools
Festival
Twelfth
Night
In
November 2017, eighteen year 8 students from Cranford Community
College took part in the international Shakespeare Schools Festival,
run by the Shakespeare Schools Foundation. They performed a thirtyminute
version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night along with three other schools
performing other plays by the world-famous bard.
These hardworking students brought Twelfth Night to life over a period of
two months, culminating in a performance led by a professional director at the
Wycombe Swan Theatre and Town Hall. Performing to over 200 guests, the students used skills they
had gained throughout the rehearsal process to wow family, friends and the general public.
The rehearsal process took students on a journey of personal discovery as well as exploration of the
play itself. Combining play with traditional dramatic techniques such as freeze frame, direct address
and improvisation, the group were able to imbue their own personalities into both the characters
they played and the performance as a whole. The start of one scene, for instance, came directly from
games which had been played during the first weeks of the rehearsal process.
In addition, there were three students dedicated solely to production roles. These three girls worked
tirelessly to design and assemble individual costume pieces for all characters whilst also painting
set, creating a lighting design and doing hair and make-up.
In recent years, the Arts have had a shadow cast upon them; the Shakespeare Schools Foundation
(SSF) and affiliated Festival strives to turn this view around; it represents an opportunity for young
people to use the Arts to develop a plethora of related and transferable skills. SSF cite that 86% of
teachers saw student behaviour improve as a result of participating in the Festival and 97% agreed
their students’ confidence had increased.
The very talented cast and crew did an amazing job representing the school and were delighted to
take part in the festival.
“Here’s to a new year filled with adventures and explorations in the Arts, creativity and continuing
to broaden our students’ horizons”.
Katie Turner (Creative Arts Department – Director “Twelfth Night” )
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