Exploring The Other Place

Academic Drama paid a trip to the National Theatre Student Conference which took place on Thursday 7 November.

Designed for GCSE and A Levels, student conferences offer talks and masterclasses with the company and creative team, exploring the play text and the production process.

Rhys (Year 13) shares his thoughts:

The second year A Level Drama and Theatre Studies cohort was treated to an enjoyable and equally educational trip to the National Theatre Student Conference where we watched Alexander Zeldin’s The Other Place.

Beforehand, we were treated to an in-depth seminar from classicist Lucy Jackson, analysing the connections between Zeldin’s work and Sophocles’ Antigone - a classical piece we have been studying for the duration the A Level Drama course.

We then heard from Alexander Zeldin during a Q&A, and were given valuable insight on his intensions as a director and how design elements and staging had been considered. The play itself was hypernaturalistic, both shocking and engaging. This trip was such a great opportunity to bolster our knowledge for the ‘Evaluation of Live Theatre’ section for our A Level exam, offering priceless insight into the mind of a playwright and crucial inspiration for our concepts of how to reimagine  Antigone for a modern audience.

Many thanks to our teachers for arming us with the best possible tools for our education!

This trip was such a great opportunity to bolster our knowledge for the ‘Evaluation of Live Theatre’ section for our A Level exam, offering priceless insight into the mind of a playwright and crucial inspiration for our concepts of how to reimagine  Antigone for a modern audience.

Rhys (Year 13)

It was a real treat to be selected for the National Theatre Student Conference and to give pupils the opportunity to learn outside the classroom at this iconic theatre. It is encouraging to see the importance that the NT places on its education programme, inspiring a young audience through ground-breaking theatre. 

Mrs Liz Bennett, Joint Head of Drama