this month's
Ink Pellet contains
THE BIG INTERVIEW: Beyond the Cart
Having ‘retired’ from running their hugely successful company, Oily Cart, Susan Elkin caught up with Tim Webb and Dave Bennett to find out what the future now holds in store.
Hamlet at Leeds Playhouse
Susan Elkin chats to Amy Leach, associate director, about the casting of a female lead and ensuring a contemporary production.
Relaxed Ballet
Birmingham Royal Ballet will be offering its second relaxed performances in early 2019 – a specially adapted production of Beauty and the Beast at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton and Birmingham Hippodrome. Here, dancer Jonathan Payn describes his involvement in the planning of this special production. Please introduce yourself for us: I’m Jonathan Payn, First Soloist […]
Nurturing Young Talent
The Lyric Hammersmith has extended its education outreach work. Susan Elkin went along to find out more.
Proudly Different
Musical Theatre Academy, long since rebranded as TheMTA, is a tiny vocational drama college whose working methods, influence and achievements are out of all proportion to its size. Susan Elkin went to find out how.
EXHIBITION: Razzle Dazzle ‘Em
Graham Hooper takes in a couple of shows looking at the art of distortion and its very practical application
Pause for thought… Christian Knowledge
Susan Elkin puts forward the case for Christian knowledge as an intrinsic part of English lessons
TheatreCraft
Susan Elkin visited TheatreCraft 2018, offering great advice to students looking for careers in the creative industries.
Book Review: Being a Playwright – A Career Guide for Writers
By Chris Foxon & George Turvey Published by Nick Hern Books Iwas delighted when this how-to book landed on my desk. I’m a writer (over 100,000 words a year). I go to the theatre to review several times a week. I’ve long thought I should somehow knit the strands of my life together and write […]
THEATRE REVIEW : Macbeth – National Youth Theatre 2018 Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre Rep Company is a vocational training group of 15 or 16 actors aged 18-25 who present a West End season at the end of their quasi-course. It’s the top tier of NYT’s work. Most participants go straight on to professional work. Abridged to 90 interval-less minutes by Moira Buffini and pithily […]
Library
Ink Pellet’s book review section covers an eclectic selection of new fiction, teachers’ guides, audio books and classics.
Many of our reviews are written by teachers, so we have an expert eye on how texts will work in the classroom. We hope to create a useful archive of reviews so that you can use this as a reference. If you would like to join our panel of reviewers, please join in or email the editor Lesley.finlay@inkwellpress.co.uk We hope the section inspires you to share new fiction with your pupils or to revisit old favourites yourself
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Mark Glover speaks to Rebecca Winwood, Special Projects Producer at Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre and discovers a venue that cares deeply for its community, working closely with other initiatives to bring art to its surrounding areas. I’ve been living in the North of England for six months now having swapped the sweeping fields of the […]
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Susan Elkin went to the UK offices of Theatre Rights Worldwide five floors above Regent Street to talk to TRW vice president, Drew Baker, about licensing and performing musicals. If you have written a musical – perhaps for your own students – then maybe you’d like it to have an afterlife in other schools. If […]
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Two separate exhibitions this autumn have similar themes. Graham Hooper visited both and gives us his insight into the friendship and relationships, as presented through art. One academic year ends, another begins. Older colleagues retire and new staff fill their roles. Students leave school for college and leave college for work or another course. This […]
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Susan Elkin pleads the case for writers and publishers to help stretch the vocabularies and minds of young readers. I’m going to quote it in full: “[young readers] should be bombarded with words like gamma rays, steeped in words like pot plants stood in water, pelted with them like confetti, fed on them like Alphabetti […]
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Thirty years ago, Nick Hern launched Nick Hern Books, one of Britain’s leading publishers of plays and drama books. Susan Elkin spoke to him. How did you get interested in drama in the first place? I did three plays at my prep school because I was told to: I played Prince Hal in Henry […]
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This year’s Carnegie shortlist has been announced with schools and reading groups around the country shadowing the process and providing valuable feedback. Susan Elkin is our guide. The CILIP Carnegie Medal, awarded annually for a children’s book, is the prize that most authors writing for young people covet above all others. The judges are librarians from […]
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For over 20 years Mousetrap Theatre Projects has helped nearly 200,000 young people experience theatre in London through trips to West End shows as well as practical drama workshops. Mark Glover finds out how the charity continues to make venues in the capital more welcoming and the challenges that teachers face when trying to book […]
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Susan Elkin rounds up some of this year’s options. Some are residential. Others work on a daily attendance basis. Some (such as Dorset Opera Summer School: www.dorsetopera.com/summerschool) lead to a large semi-professional scale production. Others simply present work for family and friends at the end of the week. The summer school mix available across the […]
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If you think the Royal Opera House is all, and only, about toffs enjoying an abstruse art form in very expensive seats then you couldn’t be more wrong. Susan Elkin went along to Thurrock to find out more. The company’s very active Learning and Participation team works very hard indeed to include and develop people […]
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The new-look Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough plays an important role in the engagement of young people in the area. Mark Glover speaks to Associate Director Diana Logan about the recent refurbishment, strong teacher relationships and how youth engagement is a life-long project on the North Yorkshire coast. As a seaside resort Scarborough is as […]