this month's
Ink Pellet contains
The National Plan for Drama and Theatre Education
Following feedback from drama teachers, educators and other interested parties, The National Plan for Drama and Theatre Education document is now completed and you can find a direct link to the pdf here. This is a mammoth achievement and a feat of collaboration. It has been widely circulated including to the DfE Team, whose members are also […]
BROADWAY LICENSING GLOBAL OFFERS UK TEACHERS FREE PERUSALS FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD SECONDARY SCHOOL EDITION
The Critically Acclaimed Show Has Now Been Adapted for UK Secondary Schools (London)—Broadway Licensing Global London, Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions are thrilled to announce that secondary school teachers can now sign up for a free perusal script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Secondary School Edition. BLG London […]
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Sidebar
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If you feel like taking a school party to a traditional, roof-raising musical then you won’t do much better than this production of Guys and Dolls, a Chichester Festival Theatre show which transferred into the West End. It’s glitzy, funny and pulsating with energy as it sails triumphantly on to its feel good finale.
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Insightful, empowering and reassuring, Facing the Fear is a book for any actor – for those who are experiencing or have previously suffered from stage fright, as well as for those who want to be fully prepared just in case that day ever comes!
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Samantha Lane, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Little Angel Theatre, Islington chats to Susan Elkin
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David Troughton, currently playing the eponymous Mr Tom, took time out during rehearsals to chat with SUSAN ELKIN about his extensive career – from Exeter to Ambridge via Stratford. I catch David Troughton, 65, in a break between rehearsals for Goodnight Mr Tom. We’re at Open Air Theatre in Regents Park just before the move down […]
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Susan Elkin joined authors and educationalists at the Action for Children’s Arts Awards in London and hopes you will follow her lead in supporting this worthy body to help campaign for greater access to creativity and the arts for young children In November a large group of people passionate about the arts and what they […]
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Now in its ninth year, Little Voices has been helping children find their singing voices, with the added benefit of developing their confidence in other areas. Susan Elkin investigated this award-winning enterprise. Everyone can play a musical instrument. And each of us has our instrument with us continually. Anyone – and of course that includes […]
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In the latest of our regional theatre spotlights, we feature the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds – a thriving cultural centre, developing strong links with schools and the wider community Looks aren’t everything. From the outside West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds is not the most beautiful building in the world resembling, as someone noted when […]
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SUSAN ELKIN visited TheatreCraft at the Royal Opera House to join hundreds of young people investigating ‘other’ career opportunities in the theatre It’s dead easy – if you’re eight or eleven or fourteen, say – to catch the theatre bug. You see adults, and occasionally children apparently having a ball on stage and suddenly you […]
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Graham Hooper took time out to visit the Tate Modern and was drawn to an installation by Harun Farocki reflecting a century of industrial life What is generally assumed to be the earliest example of film ever made was 120 years old last year, in 2015. Taken in France, lasting a mere 46 seconds, it […]
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The novel has acquired iconic status since its publication in 1981. And David Wood’s sensitive dramatization, after opening at Chichester, enjoying two West End runs and now touring until the end of May, is rapidly going the same way. And it gets better each time I see it. Evacuee Willie Beech, abused by his mentally […]