Miss Elsom (Drama, Theatre and Events Technician) 

As we approach the Christmas break, the Drama department would normally be building towards our full scale Senior production. However, with all that has happened this year, we wanted to create a theatrical experience that explores and shares the stories of our BGS school community during the first lockdown of 2020 and have chosen to produce this through the medium of Verbatim Theatre; presented in the form of a short film.

The project involves Years 10 - Lower Sixth, rehearsing in their year group bubbles, to realise this exciting and personal film project; something that has never been done here at BGS. As these times have brought changes unknown, we are striving to provide an environment where our students also learn to adapt previous skills and knowledge to dive into a new way of working with resilience and flexibility! Speaking with two of our Lower Sixth performers this is what they had to say.

Masha Ermakova (Lower Sixth) said: “I find it exciting to present different experiences through collating and developing my own monologue while working together as a year group. Performing in a different, naturalistic way is interesting as I am used to acting in a more theatrical way, but I enjoy learning new techniques and improving my skills. Verbatim is a unique, compelling project, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.”

Katie Bradley (Lower Sixth) added: “So far I have found the verbatim project a refreshing and engaging experience. Reading about how the pandemic has affected other people’s lives and the situations they have been put in has been eye-opening and developing them into a screened production has been enjoyable. I have thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative styled approach to the project. Learning how to act on screen rather than on stage with an audience has been a challenging experience but I am enjoying learning all the new skills that come with it.”

The Verbatim Project will be available to stream in the New Year.