Shiplake’s first Edinburgh Fringe production in 10 years was a success both on and off stage this summer, with good audiences and excellent feedback.
One audience member wrote to the school: “Just wanted to congratulate your students on the simply TOP job they did in Edinburgh! I attended their performance yesterday during one of my five days at this year's Fringe. I had been very politely persuaded to do so the day before by some good old fashioned 'street persuasion' by the tall member of the group, I was very pleased that he did as I would not have wanted to miss that performance. Despite the early hour, not normally associated with that age group, all the players were 'on song', literally!
As I overheard a fellow audience member on the way out exclaim: 'very powerful stuff'. In my view a privilege to witness and scored 9/10 on my private score sheet. Absolutely VERY well done to all involved!”
The eleven strong cast - travelling as the Scruffy Penguin Theatre Company, performed a new play called Homeless. The production was about a group of vulnerable young people who have formed a fragile community, while living on the street. Each character has their own story to tell about their past experiences, their current challenges and the dreams they have about escaping their present situation.
Students not only had to perform the show once a day for six days (at 9am in the morning!), but had to hand out flyers to try and sell the show to a paying public, see at least one show a day, and live in theatre digs. The experience gave students an idea of what is involved when working as a small professional theatre company while also storing up ideas for future exam productions by watching a wide variety of plays.
