During Term 1 of the Second Age Project acting classes, the dramatic turn of events – we mean dramatic NOT in the fun way - meant the talented group of young actors could no longer safely meet together to rehearse in person. So, SFJ quickly worked hard to find a way to continue our classes online!
If you haven't yet heard about our Second Age Project, it is a program of weekly classes offered to school students to learn extra-curricular acting training, through skills-based learning, rehearsal and real-world performance opportunities.
Typically, we run classes in person, however this term was a brave new world, especially for the tutor Ed and myself, as co-coordinator, who are both self-confessed technophobes! We wrangled with Zoom and managed to finish Term 1 on a high with a Shakespeare monologue presentation within the group. Our tech-saavy team was able to individually record and email their monologues out to participants to share their own work with friends and family.
Now The Second Age Project team have gained confidence in the medium, we have decided to fully embrace it for Term 2, dedicating our 8 weeks of classes to rehearsing and performing an ONLINE version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Second Agers will rehearse over Zoom, with Ed directing the young actors to enhance their Shakespeare performance skills for SCREEN, and utilising break out rooms as rehearsal rooms for other scene work, character work and line-learning.
Of course, at SFJ we are avid THEATRE lovers and we are hoping we will be able to jump back into a non-digital rehearsal room for Term 3 and rehearse IN REAL LIFE with great theatricality and once again share our work to a real live audience. But in the meantime … we are ready for our close-ups!
The director for the Second Age Project Term 2 is Ed Lembke-Hogan. Ed is a professional stage and screen actor, director and Arts Educator and one of the founding members of Sport for Jove theatre company.