Visit to EEBIV from Playtime Theatre on October 7th, 2019
Our school was delighted to welcome a professional group of touring actors from the UK to perform some of Chaucer’s Tales in the Salle Polyvalente : htpp://playtimetheatre.co.uk
The performance took place on October 7th, 2019 and thanks to the very generous contribution of the APEE funding committee, our students were entertained to an hour and a half long specially adapted rendition of Chaucer’s Tales as well as a series of workshops later in the morning and afternoon.
The Playtime Theatre Company were no strangers to EEBIV, having performed a play set in WW1 ‘Silent Song’ and given workshops last year here also. Chaucer’s Tales provided a totally different content and gave our students a wonderful opportunity to experience at first hand the highly entertaining and indeed, very humorous content of this great writer’s tales. Several students were given the opportunity of acting out characters in the tales and the audience were then asked to decide on their favourite tale, just as Chaucer’s pilgrims would have done. This provided a highly visual and engaging experience for the students.
All in all, some 350 students from the English section (S1-S6), including SWALS up to S4 attended the performance. All of the S1L1s and S2L1s were treated to a workshop in their classrooms where the actors adapted the content of their workshop to the curriculum currently being studied. They were guided by the actors to improvise and perform their own detective or adventure story in small groups. Following their performance, feedback was given by the actors as to how original or effective their story was in entertaining their audience.
In short, the performance and the workshop provided a highly interactive and entertaining introduction to Chaucer’s Tales and gave our students a chance to watch the actors walk in to the SPV in their ordinary clothes, set up the stage and emerge in their colourful costumes to play to their audience.
Any budding actor or actress among the audience could not fail to be stimulated by the creative performance given by this wonderful group of actors.