At Blackfriars Theatre Academy our awesome staff have been working incredibly hard to create opportunities for our young members to get outside and be creative, engaging with their theatre friends in a fun and safe way.
We've had zoom classes, acting workshops and are currently running Dance and Drama sessions outdoors in Fydell House Gardens.
We are particularly excited to be able to share the exciting news that our Blackfriars Theatre Academy and Senior Performers are putting on some socially distanced outdoor performances at Branston Hall Hotel, in the last week in August.
The story of ‘Never Ever After’ is inspired by and incorporates our young member’s experiences of lock down and isolation. It has been both fun and beneficial to the mental health of everyone involved be able to explore this together in a creative way, and we are proud to be able to have offered this project at such short notice. We owe a huge part of this of course to our talented writer and my good friend, Kei Bailey, who produced a script under the following brief:
‘They must be socially distanced at all times, there can only be 10 characters and only 5 of them are allowed to interact with each other, it should be about how the children felt in Lockdown, but don’t make it depressing, oh and I’d like it next week’
I think we can all agree, he did an excellent job! If you’d like to see for yourself, do please join us for one of the eight live performances taking place at Branston Hall Hotel, Lincoln on 26th-28th August. Follow this link for performance and booking details.
http://www.blackfriarsartscentre.co.uk/Never_Ever_After_-_Fundraising_show
‘West End under Twilight’ will be particularly memorable, as our Senior Performers were only two days away from their opening night of ‘Chicago’ when the lockdown situation occurred, closing all performance venues across the UK. For a lot of our Senior members, ‘Chicago’ would have been their final show at Blackfriars before embarking on university degrees and leaving for performing arts colleges. We wanted so much to provide this chance for them to have one final performance with their theatre family before this part of their life comes to an end. So many important ‘rites of passage’ have been denied to our young people this academic year, and we feel a responsibility towards our members to do everything in our power to fill this gap for them, and provide the celebration and closure that a collaborative performance can bring. It’s a one-off not to be missed. Saturday 29th August 8.30pm follow this link for performance and booking details. http://www.blackfriarsartscentre.co.uk/West_End_under_Twilight
(Please note: We are still planning to bring 'Chicago' to Blackfriars as soon as government guidance allows and are hopefully all of our current students will be able to still take part.)
We are very grateful to Fydell House for the use of their gardens for all of our socially distanced outdoor rehearsals and Branston Hall Hotel for their support and generosity in allowing us to use their beautiful outdoor space for the performances.
Thank you to our members and parents, and everyone at Blackfriars for allowing us to continue doing what we love, even if it has been a bit different.
We look forward to seeing you there!
