What an outstanding evening!
So, the big day arrived, Wednesday 16th October
2013 – Shakespeare Schools Festival, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff and our
performance of Romeo and Juliet.
We left school at about 12:30 without our printed shirts as
they hadn’t yet been delivered. We arrived at the Sherman and went straight in
for our technical rehearsal. One of the organizers, Juliet (not our Juliet)
jumped and bounced the pupils around the script to sort out Mr Roberts’s
lighting cues. Mrs Price sat with Juliet to add input and discuss changes. Mr
Roberts was in the wings with Mrs Williams and he was desperately scrabbling through
the script in the wings trying to work out which line we were leaping to next.
The pupils were less concerned, “Don’t worry sir, it’s this scene” and promptly
trotted off. The dress rehearsal (still without actual costumes) went well with
Mr Roberts, Mrs Price and Mrs Williams up in the seats and the cast left to
their own devices in the wings to sort themselves out. Even though every urge
inside Mr Roberts told him to go to the wings and organize them into positions,
the children clearly didn’t need it! It went amazingly well and the sailed
through the performance.
We then had a full cast (all four schools) warm up where we
found out the running order. First up was Y Bont Faen’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s
Dream’, second would be Evenlode’s ‘The Tempest’. There would then be a fifteen
minute interval which would be followed by High Street’s ‘Macbeth’. We were to
go on last meaning that we had to wait until about 9:00pm to go on. To everyone’s
relief, our shirts were brought to the theatre by Mrs Bamford at about 6:00pm. The
show started at 7:00pm with Juliet (again, not our Juliet) introducing the
evening. As we were in the second half our two schools watched the first two's
performances at the back of the theatre. The time, dark theatre and comfy seats
led to a few of the pupils having to be prodded to stave off sleep.
Just as the applause for the Tempest began and the audience
were getting ready for the interval, we had to get up, rush down the steps and
move to our dressing rooms. Luckily the run to the dressing rooms and the
kicking in of an adrenalin rush woke us all up. We had to wait for the third
performance to take place up in our dressing rooms where we did a few warm ups
and practices. Then our time came. We quietly crept downstairs and tiptoed into
the wings. There was no going back now! Before we knew it we were on and then before
everyone knew it, it was over! It just flew through and all three of us adults
just were left to stand in the wings like spare parts, desperately trying to
peak at what was going on on-stage. Every single cast member was magnificent. A
great number of our parents paid to come to watch so the noise for the curtain
call was just amazing. Mr Roberts even got dragged on stage with the other
teacher directors at the end too! Then it was time to go home and get a well-earned
night’s sleep.
Such an amazing evening! Many thanks to all the staff and
parents for the support on this journey. Thanks too, to Shakespeare Schools
Festival for allowing us the opportunity to perform to a live audience. Finally
and most importantly, many thanks to the pupils for their amazing performance.
