this month's
Ink Pellet contains
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Book Review – Activist
by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Driven by her own experience, and by nature a feisty “shouter” she campaigns forcibly for acknowledgement that some of the boys at school treat […]
Book Review – A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers: Reorienting Classroom Literacy Practice
by Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz, with Diana Liu and Ashlynn Wittchow The thrust of this detailed, well-researched, quite academic book about the poetry in classrooms is that we shouldn’t teach students to search for meaning so that “the poem becomes a specimen for examination under the microscope of interpretative practices”. Instead we should experience […]
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NYT CPD & Summer Season National Youth Theatre’s latest Teacher CPD Event will take place on Thursday 1 June when the NYT will be opening up their rehearsal room to educators, giving them the opportunity to watch an open rehearsal of Dennis Kelly’s DNA in advance of its limited run at the home of National […]
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As champions of new writing, the Royal Court plays a vital role in the link between education and the theatre. Here their artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, chats to Susan Elkin Vicky Featherstone’s middle name might just as well be “new writing”. It has characterised everything this dynamic woman, currently artistic director at the Royal Court, […]
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This year’s CILIP Awards are in full swing, with opportunities for your students to influence the outcome. Susan Elkin sets the scene Have you read One by Sarah Crossan? It’s a first person narrative by a teenage conjoined twin facing separation from her other half. It’s written in blank verse and I’m pretty sure you […]
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Small class sizes and reduced tuition fees are just two of the many benefits from opting to study at The Lir in Dublin. Susan Elkin delves deeper There’s a flourishing theatre industry in Dublin – The Abbey, The Gate, the Gaiety and much more. Ireland has produced many acclaimed playwrights too from Shaw, Wilde and […]
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The BalletBoyz dance company continues to promote new dance work and opportunities for male dancers. Susan Elkin takes us for a spin Billy Elliot has a lot to be thanked for. Rarely can a fictional boy have affected so many lives and freed up so many creative, talented and/or enthusiastic children – along with those […]
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Susan Elkin guides us through some of the options available to both the young and experienced performers during the summer months How do you advise that very enthusiastic student in your drama class who simply can’t get enough? She or he wants to go to drama school. Parents are anxious. The answer could be to […]
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In our most recent installment from Digital Theatre+, leading education platform for English and the Performing Arts, we asked Alesha Tatum-Howe, Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Wakeland High School in Texas, to take us through her ideal playlist on DT+. The result is an indispensable guide for drama teachers looking for resources to […]
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Graham Hooper examines the relationship between political events and art, as reflected in the current exhibition at the British Museum. The centenary of the Russian Revolution is too good an opportunity to miss for art galleries, and rightly so; the impact in design, painting and sculpture, even architecture, is still felt today. That this year, […]
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Southwark, on the south side of the Thames in London, has attracted another leading arts organisation, with the RCSSD’s recently opened Bankside studio spaces. Susan Elkin went to investigate The world of theatre and education seems to be enjoying a spate of drama school moving, or diversifying, into south London. In our last issue we […]
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Can we love two people equally? Is a gay relationship – which won’t generally populate the world – natural or acceptable? This frisky, oddly old fashioned show – which wears its seriousness lightly – did very well at the Edinburgh Fringe last year and it’s easy to see why. A five hander, it wittily explores […]