St Mary's School Calne

St Mary's Makes NEW CONNECTIONS

Congratulations to our new theatre company on getting through to the next round of the National Theatre New Connections Project.

St Mary's has created a new Theatre Company, 1Stages, and is taking part in NEW CONNECTIONS, one of the world’s largest celebrations of youth theatre. NEW CONNECTIONS, produced by the National Theatre and supported by Bank of America, commissions new plays for and about young people from some of the best contemporary playwrights, for performance by schools and youth theatres from all over the UK and Ireland, both in their home venues and at regional partnership theatres.  1Stages Theatre Company performed The Peach Child by Anna Furse, an adaptation of a well-loved Japanese fairytale, to full houses at The Delscey Burns Theatre on February the 14th and 15th.  A director from the National Theatre came to assess the piece on the 14th and a representative from Bath Theatre Royal watched the last performance, following which, St Mary’s is delighted to announce that 1Stages has been asked to go through to the next stage which will see the girls performing in Bath in May - we’ll keep you posted. 

The project has been a great success. The cast is made up of LV Form early AS Theatre Studies pupils and the crew is made up of some of the UIV Form Drama girls.  MIV Form have been studying the original story and adapting it.  All four years have been introduced to the culture of Japan and Japanese Theatre through our Japanese Teacher Miss Yumi Higashikawa.  It has been a wonderful educational experience and the beginning of a new Theatre Company.