A Level Drama Workshop and Theatre Trip – January 2025
Last week A level Drama students not only took part in a workshop with Gecko Theatre Company, they also spent an evening in London’s West End to see Kyoto at Soho Place. Year 13’s James and Rose shared their thoughts on and experience of the workshop and theatre trip respectively.
Year 13’s James – Gecko Theatre Company
Last Tuesday, A Level Drama students had the absolute pleasure of taking part in a workshop with Gecko’s Associate Director and total legend Helen Baggett.
Helen led a completely engrossing three-hour workshop, sharing with us how it feels to be a Gecko performer and teaching Gecko’s fascinating devising methods.
The afternoon flashed by; all of us swept up in Helen’s boundless energy, as she passed on many a gem for our A Level devising process. My group’s scripted examination performance, based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, have already decided to change which music we are using to foreshadow deaths, thanks to Helen’s fascinating tips on creating atmosphere.
Perhaps most vitally, Helen demonstrated just how important creating a welcoming culture in a rehearsal room is – she made us feel completely at ease and comfortable to experiment, letting us stretch ourselves without the fear of making mistakes. I left the workshop massively inspired and determined to match Helen’s enthusiasm in every rehearsal.
Year 13’s Rose – Kyoto at Soho Place
Despite many of the feature characters arguing over the diplomatic consequences of commas and enclosed brackets, Joe Murphy and Joe Robinsons Kyoto expertly manages to draw us into the world of international politics.
A dramatisation of the first international climate change treaty held in Japan in 1997, Kyoto explores the complexities of realpolitik amidst new scientific understanding through sharp dialogue and gripping characterisation. By placing Don Pearlman (Stephen Kunken), a Republican lawyer working on behalf of the oil industry, as its narrator, we as the audience are faced with our own hypocrisy; we nod our heads at Kiribati’s (Andrea Gatchalian) stirring speech on rising sea levels before enjoying our interval drinks “provided by BP”.
The deceptively simple set and projection encapsulates the tense intimacy of a UN conference whilst matching the fast-paced debate that runs as the plays central through line. Whether you believe that ‘would’ should replace ‘could’, I think we can all agree this play deserves an exclamation mark!
