Opening Doors

Last night I had one of those lovely sessions…one of those experiences that reminds you why you do the job that you do…

Every Thursday night I facilitate workshops with and direct The Black Company of Yew Tree Youth Theatre…a group of about 20 17 – 20 year olds. We’re starting to gear up for our Shakespeare festival, which will happen in June and before we get down to the rehearsal of what we will actually perform I wanted to play around with the language of Shakespeare. To that end I picked four sonnets to explore practically…the task instructions I gave were simple…in small groups pick your favourite, decide its meaning and present it back to the whole group fuelled with that intention…

Now here comes the gratifying bit…the task was undertaken and I watched as slowly at first and then with a gathering speed the sonnet they were working on drew them in. At the end of the session their work inspired such rich discussion using such delightful vocabulary…the group talked about exploration and understanding and the relevance of the themes to them and how the process had made them question both their understanding of themselves, the work and the wider world. Although it’s never just the words…listening to the commitment in their intonation and observing the fervor in their eyes served to underline what was being taken from their creative journey of the evening…

It’s worth remembering that all of the group have studied Shakespeare…most of them have performed his work to varying extents…what was particularly gratifying about this discussion was it was all about abandoning preconceived ideas and discovering the words and what they have to say anew.

There is something wonderful about spending an evening opening doors for people or at the very least pushing them a little wider so they have a better view…