Students shine at the North London Drama Festival

Everyone who attends after-school classes at The Playing Space took part in the North London Drama Festival on 8 and 9 May 2010. Each class prepared a group acting scene, and many students also entered in other categories. Across all age groups (from 4 to 17), we had sight readers, storytellers, verse and prose readers, monologuers, duologuers, and a public speaker. Huge congratulations to everyone who took part! What an amazing achievement it is to take what festival adjudicator Stephen Joseph called “the walk of fear” – those nervous steps from a chair in the auditorium up onto a large stage in an unfamilar room, knowing that in a few moments you will have to project your voice and movements to fill that room. You try to forget that family members, friends, and hundreds of strangers are watching you and an adjudicator’s pencil is hovering. From “Santa Claws” to Molière, via “The Day I Met the Queen” and “The Grapes of Wrath”, we were enormously proud of each and every one of our students. The festival is competitive, and there were prizes galore for The Playing Space. Much more important, though, is the fact that everyone came off stage happy and exhilarated. Though often nervewracking, the experience of performing for an audience has huge benefits for a young person’s confidence.