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Korede, Year 10 (pictured right), talks about her experience of playing John Proctor in our recent production of The Crucible.

“It’s the first major production I’ve done so this really boosted my confidence and taught me how to develop a role and make it my own. My character faces a lot of difficulties in terms of his pride so working through that was something I was really interested in.

"We had rehearsals every day from 4-6pm then as the performance got nearer we came in on Saturdays from 8am too. My mum was at the second performance so that was added pressure! But when we got the feedback I could tell people had really enjoyed it.

"Maintaining my voice through the whole play was difficult because my character has to shout a lot, but we had a lot of support from the director.

We’re doing The Crucible in drama GCSE so it was really good to have the experience of being the character so when you have to answer questions you have more insight into the play."

Picture right: girls in rehearsal, photographed by Sabria Al-Shurbaji, Year 10.

Sarah Harvey, drama teacher, explains why she thought the time was right for our first major school production.

“The Year 10 group are so talented and committed that I felt they needed the chance to perform in a space bigger than a classroom. We had a cast of 21, plus our girls did all the technical side of things and created the set too, as well as front of house. I even had a student assistant director!  I was so proud of them. 

"It was a wonderful moment when both performances sold out and we even had girls asking teachers if they had any spares. This is a challenging play about difficult issues but they needed this challenge to show what they can do."

This was the academy’s first production but won’t be the last. There’s talk of a musical next… watch this space!