24 Hour Drama 2005

Last weekend from 7.30 on Friday night 35 students immersed themselves in the 24 Hour Drama event. Students spent the Friday night bonding as a team and focusing as a group before developing depiction and improvisation work from a variety of stimuli. The students worked with a newspaper article, a series of objects, a collection of photos, a painting, a mask, a piece of music and a sound effect to start them on their creative journeys.
Having worked from 7.30 on Friday until almost midnight the students fell onto the Studio Theatre and classroom floors exhausted. This year, uniquely, most of them went straight to sleep!

Work began early again on Saturday morning but only after a hearty breakfast provided by a willing band of teachers. The students worked through until lunch time when they stopped for their free Subway sandwiches! The afternoon saw the focus switch to the quality of the work. The content was established, now all that remained was for the students to evaluate the work and performance with critical eyes. Tired, befuddled and reaching “the wall” the students were thankful to find Mr. Noonan and Ms Peters willing and able to give fresh creative advice (your turn next year?)

At 7.30 on Saturday the work was ready to be performed. By that stage no-one could remember how the product had been reached, what twists and turns had been explored or how on earth such a story had come from the original stimuli. The magic of it all is that no-one could have predicted on the Friday night that the journey would take us to a place where “Mother of Life is dying because humankind is losing faith so she shows them a vision of Nothingness, which forces them to re-evaluate until they realize that life is everything!” As Marta so pertinently asked during the performance “Don’t you get it?

For those of you who were in the audience and those of you who encouraged your child in this event, we thank you for your support. And for all the students who worked so hard, it was great (and I really mean that!). Well done!

Siobhan Buckman, Drama Teacher