Monday 22 March 2010

Finally...some internet and time!

Hi all,

We are in our last week of Contes Dores in the beautiful town of Harrogate. The show is going very well; our pack up time has quickened to 30 mins where needed and the kids are as enthusiastic as ever!

Since I last posted we enjoyed a week in Wokingham and Reading, performing to a variety of year groups in some lovely schools. We performed at a secondary school, which is always a bit nervy due to the quite childish nature of the show, but we were very well recieved there and it was much better than when we visited the same school last year. This was followed by a friday gig in the uber-picturesque village of Ewelme, south Oxfordshire. The school was amazing...it was like a castle; all nooks, crannies and mysterious corridors! Unfortunately their hall was really small, so we performed in the village hall just down the road. The kids and teachers really enjoyed the show and I think the whole school came to see it, which was nice, as you can always count on 6 year olds to get the crowd going!!

The following week we went to stay in Cambridge with Emilys mum Shona, and had a lovely time catching up with her. Shona came to Tunisia to spend christmas with Emily and we all had a great time with her out there. She cooked us some fab food, which always makes me happy! After staying with Shona we did a strange day in a town near Bedford, performing a great show in the morning to a really nice primary school, before moving next door for an afternoon show in a middle school. It was supposed to be for a teachers conference, but only 10 showed up, so some year 6s got brought in and were a bit confused by it all as they hadn't done any prep work on the story or vocab in the show...plus we were in a corner a cavernous sports hall! The teachers did enjoy it a lot though...we could hear them laughing throughout and the kids even managed to learn the choruses to the songs by the end of the show, so it was a success! We then went to do a show in Stretford, Manchester, which was very good. Lots of visiting primary schools came and really enjoyed themselves. This was followed by a show in Northwich at a high school with more visiting primaries.

Then I got to go home...yay!! We were away for 4 weeks and I had missed the north quite a lot...I was really chuffed to be back in the cold, dank grimness of Sunniside once again!

We have just finished a very rowdy show in our first school in Harrogate. They saw the show two years ago, before I was in it, and enjoyed it again!

After this week I begin rehearsals for Islands, which opens in Hexham on the 22nd April. I'm looking forward to being back in a theatre...not that I dont enjoy primary schools; there is always a great camaraderie to be found in the staff room, but I find there is much less mashed potato on the stage than in the school hall!!

hasta luego

Jack

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Quick networky post...

Hello to any readers of The Courier who are visiting this page after the article in the paper on Monday. Although there wasn't enough space in the article, we'd love for you all to become fans of us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hexham-United-Kingdom/Theatre-Sans-Frontieres/132121159401 and/or follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/theatresansf

We are touring at the end of next month, and these will be good ways to stay in touch with us and see what we're up to! Of course, you can find all our tour dates, locations, information about previous shows and so on at http://www.tsf.org.uk

Thanks,


Stu

Thursday 4 March 2010

Busy, busy, busy + no internet = not very much blogging!

Hi,

We have been touring hard in the south east, living in a cottage with no internet access. the show is going well. We have a morning off today, getting a little bit of internet time in, but it's not enough...we have to leave for Sonning Common high school in half an hour. So it's short and sweet today. I will try and write something with more substance this weekend when I go to visit my brother for his birthday in Totnes. I don't think he has the internet either though...I'll find a way though, he sleeps until mid afternoon, so there should be time in the morning!!

Ok Do k

Must rush

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Jack