National Theatre Connections Festival

St Edward’s pupils recently took part in the National Theatre’s annual, nationwide youth theatre festival, Connections, at The North Wall. The OX2 Collective – St Edward’s pupils in partnership with The North Wall and the wider community – performed The Ramayana Reset, written by Ayeesha Menon.

Sixth Form pupil, Olga Muravitskaya, reviews the experience.

Last weekend, The North Wall hosted the annual National Theatre Connections festival, welcoming professional facilitators and companies of young actors from around Oxford. Lasting three days, the festival consisted of several performances from participating companies. With plays about time travel, parallel universes, protests about the climate crisis and murder mysteries. All directors took creative approaches to their chosen scripts and working collaboratively with their groups of talented young actors, creating exciting theatrical performances. I wouldn’t be the only one to admit that it was impressive to see so many young willing participants. All keen actors diving into the immersive experience of researching, directing and acting.

After each performance ‘Q&A’ sessions were held in the performance space. Directors, along with actors willing to answer some very diverse questions from the audience about type casting, character research and development process. For many drama students, this was a unique opportunity to learn about various researching techniques and get some insight into the process of collaborative works from drama students at other schools.

Apart from the several plays performed, NT Connections hosted a variety of workshops facilitated by professionals in fields of set design, verbatim, comedy, stage combat and many more. Open workshops for the attendees of the festival to get an insight into various performance techniques and advice from professionals. Different skills and techniques explained to us in a hands-on experience: Designing your own stage set, discovering the importance of the connection with the audience in comedy performances, seeing the importance of movement and physical gestures in hip-hop performances and learning about dance as a theatrical convention on its own. The workshop with the biggest number of participants and sparking a lot of interest name was ‘Stage Combat’.

At last, I would want to point out just how unique an experience the NT Connections festival was. As a pupil at St Edward’s, I am very happy to know that The North Wall offers such opportunities for young and professional theatre enthusiasts to get a chance to meet and share experiences. To immerse yourself in a world that, perhaps, you haven’t experienced before.

Photos by Tim Hand Productions. For more images, visit our gallery here.