Rugby Drama Showcase 

Our Year 10 drama students took part in a drama showcase with other local schools last week.  It was set up years ago by Mrs Mason and Mr Browning from Rugby School (the hosts) for students in their first year of the GCSE. It allows them to experience displaying on a professional stage and to watch pieces from their peers before they begin their exams.  

Rugby High had five groups showing a wide variety of pieces, from the sombre and unsettling - 1984 and The Juniper Tree – to the utterly hilarious – Ashgirl, Bluebeard and the Emperor’s New Clothes. All groups presented really well and were commended for their brave dramatic choices, making the audience laugh at their caricatured characters and then squirm at their uncomfortable physicality. Rugby School also had a couple of small groups as well as a class piece, showing their interpretation of abstract paintings. Most of the other schools had whole class pieces taking on a more serious tone; it was very interesting to see how each of their individual characters culminated in a very thought-provoking performance. Being in the audience was such good fun and gave us some surprising ideas to include in our next work that we probably wouldn’t have thought of before. We all loved performing as it was a great theatre space with an excellent audience making it very satisfying to see all our hard work pay off.  

As we are about to embark on preparations for our devised exam at the end of the year (worth 40% of our GCSE) it was excellent practice to perform in front of our peers and we will continue to reflect on this experience to improve our skills. We would like to thank Mrs Mason for organising the trip and for taking such care to make sure that each of our pieces were as amazing as they could be. 

Elise Scotney Year10