Shakespeare said it best when he wrote: "What E're Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part." The Drama and Theatre students at YCIS Shanghai Gubei Campus definitely know how to best act their various roles, and eagerly get involved in the various drama and theatre experiences the school has to offer.

This November will see YCIS students stage the classic Broadway play, The Miracle Worker, the true story of the amazing Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. The show has now been cast and will be represented by a strong, confident group of students who will bring this emotional play to life. The preparation that the performers put into learning their monologues for the auditions, as well as their confidence demonstrated on stage, was exceptional.

Theatre and Drama students have also enjoyed participating in the “Popcorn and a Stage Play” after-school activities, which give students the opportunity to see live theatre (onscreen) from a variety of genres and theatre traditions. Students have already enjoyed the epic musicals, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Miracle Worker, and in October, Henrik Ibsen's classic play, A Doll House, will be screened for the students to enjoy, while munching on some freshly popped popcorn.

The YCIS Drama and Theatre classroom programmes also continue to flourish, and to inspire creativity. Year 9 students are navigating the challenge of staging devised plays based on tableaux and fairy tales, or original stories. Year 10 students have recently completed their first performance assessment, working in pairs and using scenes based on the poem, Overheard On A Salt Marsh, by Harold Munro, and have since moved onto monologue performances. Additionally, students are very eager to begin working on their classroom musical, Grease.

Year 11 students are in “focused work mode” as they prepare their final assessment monologue performances for IGCSE Drama submissions, to be performed later this semester, and Year 12 IB Theatre students are enjoying the process of creating a physical theatre performance, as well as planning a mini-version of one of their major assessments which they will put together in Year 13, with the aim of looking at 20th century theatre forms. Last but not least, the Year 13 IB Theatre students, fresh off the success of performing a musical theatre excerpt in recent IGCSE and IB assemblies, are now working on their independent projects. These diverse and amazing pieces of theatre will be performed in the Black Box Theatre in October.

We look forward to seeing you at our shows this year!

Contributed by: Mr. Robert Dil, Performing Arts/Drama & IB Theatre Teacher