NewVIc final year performing arts students shine in their last college production
Final year performing arts students get to perform despite Covid-19, as well as meeting and interviewing the playwright, Rob John.
Just a few months ago it was unclear if NewVIc’s final year Performing Arts students would be able to perform their final show at all. After a challenging year, and having missed out on their End of Year exam performance last year due to lockdown, the group were more desperate than ever to finally get back on the stage and perform as a company.
With strict safety measures and risk assessments in place throughout the rehearsal process, the students were extremely grateful and excited to perform their final show, a production of Rob John’s comedy ‘Nothing on Earth’ in front of a socially distanced audience at NewVIc theatre.
The play, a comical reworking of the story of Noah’s ark and set in a dystopian parallel universe, explores greed, kindness and what it means to be good. The majority of the company performed several roles in the play whilst a team of three students took a lead on Sound design, Costume and Set design.
The group were lucky enough to interview the playwright, Rob John who answered their questions in depth and gave them tips and ideas about how to explore and think about the play and their characters.
Playwright, Rob John said:
“A few weeks ago I was sent a video made by a group of performing arts students at NewVic. They were rehearsing a production of my play Nothing on Earth for their final project and had a number of questions to ask me. I was so impressed by the energy of the actors and their enthusiasm for their work. They asked intelligent, challenging and thought- provoking questions which showed that they’d already had an excellent understanding of the play and were working hard to put their own stamp on it. I've since seen clips from the final show and it looks fantastic but having ‘met’ the cast I kind of knew it would be. So thank you NewVic students for doing my play. It was a real privilege for me to be able to share a small part of your production process.”
The production was a huge success and although the piece could not be toured to local schools like in usual years, the performance was filmed professionally and will be made available online for future audiences.
The group are now preparing to take up their places to study Drama or Performing Arts at a range of high profile drama Schools, conservatoires and universities. As they look back on their time at NewVIc they should be proud of all they have achieved in such challenging circumstances.
Alice, who played Mrs. Noah, vocational level 3 student, said:
“Being able to work closely and collaboratively with the other cast members to make a funny piece of theatre that was entertaining for our audience was amazing.
We were very lucky to have been able to speak to the playwright as it put us at an advantage when it came to research and understanding the thought process between the writing of certain characters and the play as a whole. We learnt what the motivation behind writing the play was which meant that we knew what messages we wanted to portray on stage.
During my time at NewVIc, I have become much more confident in my performing abilities and myself and I am planning to go to university to study acting and performing so that I can work professionally as an actor in the future.”
Roberto, Alice, who played Mr Noah, vocational level 3 student, said:
“At NewVIc I got to learn so many techniques and study many theatre legends. Studying these made everything we did in our final show possible. I’m looking forward to using these skills to help start my directing career”.