Largest Drama School celebrates 30 years!
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
CELEBRATING 30 years of success world-wide, Helen O'Grady Drama Academy students from the Larne Studio showcased the award-winning programme for family and friends, and the general public at the Larne Town Hall.
The 5-8 year-old age group from the Academy's Lower Primary classes took to the stage first and demonstrated their newly developed skills.
The captivated audience was shown how this fast-moving programme and extensive curriculum allowed each child to develop their dramatic skills in a fun-filled way over the course of the term.
From the start, using dynamic introductory activities, these youngsters demonstrated to the audience how the aims of the Academy to develop confidence, self-esteem and communication skills have worked this term with the students performing with energy and vitality.
This was quickly followed by the speech training which clearly emphasised that this vital element of the curriculum was enjoyable whilst also teaching some very relevant communication skills.
A delightful mimed play set to music, a dance drama, showed the development of the students and their increased ability to listen to musical cues while acting.
The end of the presentation, and the highlight of their performance, was the improvised play in which the students were encouraged to develop their own lines and a creative plot through carefully structured and managed improvisation.
Following this, the students from the Upper Primary class for the 9 - 11 year-olds displayed their more advanced skills.
The show-piece of the day, after demonstrating how vocal training developed their clear articulate speech, was their improvised plays.
Creative performance skills were evident as the children demonstrated strong, relevant ad-libbing skills and clear characterisation. The students in this class have also concentrated on scripted plays throughout the term which they performed for the thrilled audience at the end of the show.
The trio of scripts, exclusively written for the Helen O'Grady programme, brought to the fore the children's abilities with character acting and humour. This was a fitting ending to the end to their show.
Jenny Marshall, the teacher of the Larne class, said, "It is fantastic to see the development of these students over the course of the term and the support of the parents and schools in the local community has been fantastic.
“This was a wonderful celebratory Parents Day, where every student had an important part to play and is a culmination of the extensive work completed throughout the term."
At the end, Lisa Semple, Executive Principal of Helen O'Grady Drama Academy in Northern Ireland, presented every student with a Certificate of achievement and said, "This studio is a great tribute to the 30 years of operation of the Helen O'Grady Drama Academy worldwide and it is wonderful to see our unique self-development programme achieving such creative results in this area.
“With over 1200 students attending our affordable classes throughout the Province, we are truly a community-based drama school."
For further details please telephone: 028 91464337 E-mail: ni@helenogrady.co.uk Web: www.helenogrady.co.uk
Subscribe to read full newspaper »
Send to a friend
Please complete the following form to inform a friend about this page.
