Half of what you were
Thu, 29 Sept 2011, 08:54 amGordon the Optom1 post in thread
Half of what you were
Thu, 29 Sept 2011, 08:54 am‘Half of What You Were’ is an original one act play, devised completely by the SPY (Sterling Players Youth) Ensemble and presented at Stirling Theatre, Morris Place, Innaloo on 28th and 30th September. The hour long show has it is curtain up at 8.00 pm.
It is England in 1939, war has just broken out. Young autistic Jenny (Jessica Russell) is playing a board-game on the floor with her Mum, Vivian (Madelaine Page) when her Dad, Ryan (Clare Housley) enters the sitting room carrying a suitcase. The time has come for him to leave the family home and head for the frontline. The mother hugs him, but his daughter Jenny is too distressed and runs to her bedroom.
We cut the east end of London, there has been a blitz attack and Lucy (Mariah O’Dea) is wandering the devastation searching for her home and parents. Eventually her Aunt Kate (Courtney Turner), whom she has never met, arrives to take her back to her house in the country, Lucy’s new home.
Several years later, Ryan arrives home from the war, to a less than enthusiastic welcome. With the hell that he has experienced, he has changed. Ryan now has an alter ego (Ella Evans).
How will the family cope with Ryan’s split personality? What will become of Lucy? The play jumps a further few years to give us the answers.
The six young female performers, aged between 17 and 21 yrs, got together to write and develop a script on the theme ‘Vultures’, and then over 15 weeks they developed the characters, worked out the design, sourced the wonderful costumes which ranged from old World War 2 army jackets, to authentic dresses, old props and hair styles. You can see what a huge amount of work has gone into this show.
Some older audience members may take this wartime scenario for granted, but these kids have had to go back a couple of generations to unknown territory, and then had to research all of the aspects.
The depth of storyline development and accurate insight to the era is quite amazing for such a young team.
For the past 10 years, Stirling Players Youth have offered young people a creative opportunity to learn about the different aspects of performance and production. I understand that this SPY project was mentored by Brendan Ellis and Keren Schlink, with help from Joshua Walker, who simply offered directorial assistance and advice to the group during the development of the piece – almost all of the direction and movement coming from this strong cast.
The script covered the full range of emotions and the actors certainly haven’t side-stepped any tricky scenes, every performer was admirable, bringing alive strong characters.
Other theatre groups should see this play and see what can be done for the young potential actors in their area. Congratulations to all.
‘Half of What You Were’ is an original one act play, devised completely by the SPY (Sterling Players Youth) Ensemble and presented at Stirling Theatre, Morris Place, Innaloo on 28th and 30th September. The hour long show has it is curtain up at 8.00 pm.
It is England in 1939, war has just broken out. Young autistic Jenny (Jessica Russell) is playing a board-game on the floor with her Mum, Vivian (Madelaine Page) when her Dad, Ryan (Clare Housley) enters the sitting room carrying a suitcase. The time has come for him to leave the family home and head for the frontline. The mother hugs him, but his daughter Jenny is too distressed and runs to her bedroom.
We cut the east end of London, there has been a blitz attack and Lucy (Mariah O’Dea) is wandering the devastation searching for her home and parents. Eventually her Aunt Kate (Courtney Turner), whom she has never met, arrives to take her back to her house in the country, Lucy’s new home.
Several years later, Ryan arrives home from the war, to a less than enthusiastic welcome. With the hell that he has experienced, he has changed. Ryan now has an alter ego (Ella Evans).
How will the family cope with Ryan’s split personality? What will become of Lucy? The play jumps a further few years to give us the answers.
The six young female performers, aged between 17 and 21 yrs, got together to write and develop a script on the theme ‘Vultures’, and then over 15 weeks they developed the characters, worked out the design, sourced the wonderful costumes which ranged from old World War 2 army jackets, to authentic dresses, old props and hair styles. You can see what a huge amount of work has gone into this show.
Some older audience members may take this wartime scenario for granted, but these kids have had to go back a couple of generations to unknown territory, and then had to research all of the aspects.
The depth of storyline development and accurate insight to the era is quite amazing for such a young team.
For the past 10 years, Stirling Players Youth have offered young people a creative opportunity to learn about the different aspects of performance and production. I understand that this SPY project was mentored by Brendan Ellis and Keren Schlink, with help from Joshua Walker, who simply offered directorial assistance and advice to the group during the development of the piece – almost all of the direction and movement coming from this strong cast.
The script covered the full range of emotions and the actors certainly haven’t side-stepped any tricky scenes, every performer was admirable, bringing alive strong characters.
Other theatre groups should see this play and see what can be done for the young potential actors in their area. Congratulations to all.