Initial Reaction to Ashcroft

At the end of last term, Tim told a group of us from theatre that we would be part of the annual Ashcroft project taking place at the end of next term. Ashcroft, which i later found out, is a community group project which includes a selection of people from theatre, musical theatre, dance and cap working with original text (written by Tim) lyrics (written by Rob) and choreography (by Corin) to put on a musical show for children around our community between the school years of year 4-6. Although this is a musical for young children who perhaps are experiencing theatre for the first time, it is also relatable to every age group, and this became more evident to me after our first read through of the musical 'Stories Left Behind'.

Today we had our first read through and rehearsal for Ashcroft and overall I am feeling incredibly excited and inspired to be part of this project and to be performing at an outside venue to young children. I feel as if the piece is solid and even though we haven't started on the songs or dance sequences yet, I can clearly see them fitting in nicely with the text. I am particularly excited about the Peter Pan section as I can see how energetic that scene will be and I think the children will respond well to it. I feel as if the message of the script is vital and a good one for us to preset to the children; spending less time with technology and more time with literature and imagination. For their generation techology is an every present thing in their lives so I am thrilled that firstly we are doing a musical about the importance of reading and secondly that we aren't being patronising about they way we will be presenting this message. I think the moral is extremly relevant and I love how each of the characters decide to leave their games/ipad/phones and read the novel they were involved in. I think it is a good element to have stories and technology that the kids can relate to as it will make their experience of watching our piece even more enjoyable. 

I love the variety of the script, how some parts are comedic, romantic, dramatic, bold and in some places possibly thrilling. These elements are important to have in a children's piece of theatre because it keeps them interested and on the edge of their seats. I also think they will take the message more seriously if they have enjoyed the piece which is after all the point of this community term; to provide educational, enjoyable entertainment for young children. I understand that it is only the first rehearsal, but I am slightly apprehensive as to how the transitions between each scene will work and how the dance numbers will work because the stage is medium seized and there are a lot of us, but I have faith in the project and the teachers and once we started to rehearse the first scene I could see how with some practice it will flow nicely. 

 As this is my first experience of being involved in a musical, the rehearsal process was slightly new to me and I found it slightly difficult to switch my focus form the text of the script to talking about songs and dance routines, but after today I feel a lot more confident and self aware of what I need to bring to the next rehearsal. I am thoroughly enjoying working with new teachers and students and even though we have only spent one day rehearsing together, I already feel like we are a company. I loved seeing each of the other strands work and learning from them, as even though I am fairly confident dancing I am slightly nervous about dancing and singing and acting together. I'm also not a confident singer so having the support of the teachers and my fellow students really helped me today. Overall I am exceptionally excited and privileged to be part of Ashcroft this year, because it is very unusual to be performing an original musical piece to an audience at a professional venue and to also be helping the community.