dramaschool

Our warmest congratulations to Sian, who has been selected from all candidates in the Speech and Drama exams 2015 for the Exhibition Prize. Prizes are awarded annually to candidates who have gained the highest distinction marks in a practical examination at Grades 5-8 and Advanced Certificatfor for the Bahamas, West Indies, USA and Canada, one prize for each grade level 

Sian won the Prize for her Grade 6 Speech and Drama with a score of 98%.  

Sian has been very active in Collingwood School’s theatre productions as Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank, Ellie & Margery inThe Dining Room, Katherina Cavalieri in Amadeus and as Waitress in The Breakfast Special.

Behind the stage, she has worked as the assistant stage manager for United Players of Vancouver’s production of A Man for All Seasons, the production assistant for MJ Lee’s short film Story of Us, and the assistant stage manager for Stanley Park’s Theatre Under the Stars’ production of Beauty and the Beast.

Sian is looking forward to studying communication studies and media studies in university – and she is certain that speech and drama will continue to be an important part of her life.

I often feel a little like " Benjamin Button"  where at 50 years old, I seem to be getting younger by the minute and finally able to do things that I longed to do many years ago. 

One of those things was attending drama college which just over one month ago, I was lucky enough to do. 

Last year my Drama coaches, Kay and Antony Stamboulieh, introduced to me the notion of traveling to Kent, England to attend one of the summer workshops at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, where Antony trained as an actor. 

This was such a great opportunity, I couldn't ignore it and so shortly afterwards, I secured my place in the course entitled " Shakespeare and Michael Chekhov - Synchronicity between actor and text."

The start date for this course was July 4th and it just so happens that a few days earlier, veteran actress Ann Mitchell was due to perform in the West End play called " A View from Islington North".  I mention this because Ms. Mitchell happens to be my all time favourite actress whom I have wanted to meet for the past 30 years. It is my admiration for her work and talent that generated my desire to pursue an education in drama and performance. 

Anyway, I decided to travel from Canada a few days earlier than originally planned so that I could finally see my dramatic heroine in the flesh ( on stage that is). I didn't actually intend to hang around after the play as although I have few fears on stage, I tend to be a little shy in real life situations such as this.  Seeing Ann Mitchell live on stage would have been enough for me. 

However, as luck, or destiny would have it, I happened to be in the tiny foyer of the Arts Theatre a little earlier than intended (as my heels were too high to wander around London any longer) and I happened to start a conversation with a lovely lady called Margaret. I told her the reason for my early pilgrimage to London and the fact I wasn't going to wait around afterwards.  Her eyes suddenly lit up and with a smile she said “ well, that's too special to miss, I happen to be an actress and I have a friend who is on Face Book with Ann.  I'm going to text her right now to see if she can get a message to Ann"  Well the next few minutes are a little bit of a blur but sure enough, Margaret soon received a message back to say that Ann would be delighted to meet me. 

After a wonderful play, I sat patiently waiting in the foyer and soon I was face to face with Miss Mitchell.  What a lovely and gracious lady, so commanding on stage and so humble off. What a perfect combination! With shaking hands I took hers and thanked her for inspiring me to pursue my passion of acting.  With her sweet Cockney accent, she thanked me back and later that evening, she looked me up on Face Book and we are now friends. Talk about a dream come true? Actually more than I could have ever imagined!

Then after I came down to earth ( it took a day or two) I traveled to Kent to begin my 7 day course at Rose Bruford. What a wonderful experience that was! The Instructor Graham Dixon immediately transported us to a holistic world of learning. 

Mr. Dixon was very passionate about the Michael Chekhov method of acting and I have to say at first, I had to leave my mind wide open in order to take it all in. It was quite different from anything that I have experienced before. 

Michael Chekhov (apparently a relative of Anton) believed that contrary to other teaching, any emotion can be generated by gestures. This method focuses on a set of "principles" which the actor can use to generate an emotion within without depending on his own emotional experiences.   For instance, if one's character is an introvert, some simple physical gestures that we practiced were used as the catalyst that naturally evoked the related emotion.  At first I have to admit I was a little sceptical but as I began to practice many of these gestures and principles, my emotions did change without effort. I truly felt that with these tools, I could become anyone I wanted on stage. 

Over the course of a week, we utilized gestures while studying Shakespeare's text and I must say, I gained a wealth of experience that I never thought possible in that regard. 

All this new information as well as a perfectly idyllic location proved to be a physical, educational and emotional retreat that I could have only dreamed of. 

As Cavafy once said in his poem " Ithaka" (the first poem I learned with Kay and Tony)

Keep Ithaka always in your mind. 

Arriving there is what you're destined for. 

But don't hurry the journey at all. 

Better if it lasts for years, 

so you're old by the time you reach the island, 

wealthy with all you've gained on the way, 

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich

Well, I arrived, found my Ithaka and it was well worth the journey.

Emily Wong, a student at our Vancouver dramaschool, is in her final year of the UBC Transition programme, a two year programme that transitions from elementary school to the University.  A true polymath, 14 year old Emily’s passions range from Physics to Poetry with so many in-between.  Her dilemna right now is prioritizing her interests in preparation for university next fall. Will her career be in biology, engineering, business, writing, psychology? Top of her bucket list is to travel the world. 

This summer she did a short internship at Seaspan, the Vancouver shipbuilding company, where she was given two days to research and prepare a business presentation for the Horizontal Engineering and Program Plan division. Here is a comment from one of the engineers, "Emily did an absolutely awesome job!  This is a subject that is not understood by many experienced project managers; but this presentation takes the "mystery" out of Earned Value Management and makes it easy to grasp and understand.  I had many reference sources while studying for my PMP exam a few years ago and this would have been more helpful than some of the material I had!”  Emily used the example of baking cookies for profit, demonstrating precisely why Earned Value Management is used as an early warning system to determine if a project is behind schedule or over budget.  She “hit the task out of the ball park” in the words of the Program Manager.

Just recently, Emily learned that one of her poems will be published by Polar Expressions in The Chance, a collection of poems and short stories written by young Canadians.  Here is Emily’s poem, entitled Honest Masks:

What makes the world go round?

Some say love, some say money

some say the sun’s gravitational pull.

But the true oil of society’s machinery

drips from cold pressed lies.

Don’t deny it—

you’ve lied already today

or maybe you’ll tell one later.

Fibs, fable, tall stories, 

“omitting the truth,”

we all do it: it’s in our nature.

“Honesty is the best policy”

…but is it really?

Is it really worth hurting someone’s feelings?

You say you want the truth

…but do you really?

Here is my truth:

I know when people tell a lie.

I see it in their faces.

I can’t tell you how I do this

it would be like describing colour 

to someone who has never seen.

But these are not shades of saffron and marigold

I see rust and starless black.

The sweet angels have their secrets

which flicker them to demons.

I can’t tell them, of course.

They would cast me out

sever all connections.

Because you can’t have me knowing

all your dirty little secrets.

So I block them out—

continue as if I hadn’t seen 

that tiny expression

flashing past your honest mask.

I wonder how it would be like

in your blissful, ignorant world.

For if you could see what I see…

we’d probably all be gone;

lying until extinction.

This oil that keeps our societies running

seems grimy and vile,

this inky darkness causes such unease.

Yet when you spread it thin

look closely

you can see the rainbows within.