Drama

Two actors performing
Two boys on stage
Two boys on stage
Actors Performing
Performers on Stage
Dancers
Actors performing a scene
Actor portraying an ugly witch

Here is the Director of Drama's report  for the 2009 Recita finals.

Winchester does not offer examined courses in Drama, but the appetite for theatre is all the more passionate for this. The ‘QEII' is permanently humming. During the school year 2007-2008 there were twenty-three productions and two charity rock concerts - the latter now a regular feature. As usual, hundreds of actors and back-stage crews and thousands of audience members were involved.

The twenty-three productions included eleven in the First Year House Drama Festival, a Cloister Time fixture since 1993, which gives all new boys their first main acting opportunity. The whole First Year appears on stage, directed by members of the Fourth Year in 20-30 minute plays, many of which (eight this year) are home-grown. It is now a competition, for Darcy Pot, adjudicated after two mornings of performance. Six houses then perform over the next two evenings to an audience of parents, dons and friends, with a selection of Houses performing again on Winchester Day to parent and Old Wykehamist audiences. The Festival always plays to packed houses and is a highly popular event.

The keenest First Year actors will already have joined Second and Third Years in a Junior Play during Short Half. This is always a major, large-cast production. The most recent plays have been: Dr Faustus, The Trial, Henry V, Murder in the Cathedral, A Clockwork Orange, The Merchant of Venice, Kes, a Revue, The Government Inspector, The Good Person of Sichuan, Lord of the Flies, The Golden Years, The Kitchen.

There are three or four House Plays per year, mostly in Common Time; these are directed by dons or, just as frequently, by boys. Houses still occasionally perform in their grubbing halls or gardens, when QEII is unavailable - especially Toye's, who have produced The Importance of Being Earnest, Charley's Aunt and The School for Scandal.  Recent House plays have been: Twelve Angry Men, Bugsy Malone, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Volpone, Duck Soup, Lord of the Flies, Unman, Wittering & Zigo, A Flea in Her Ear, The Captain of Kopenick, Reduced Shakespeare, First In Last Out, The Real Inspector Hound, The Roses of Eyam, The Wind in the Willows, Chips With Everything, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Doctor In Spite Of Himself, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, On the Razzle, Titus Andronicus, The Fire Raisers, Journey's End, Harlequinade, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Importance of Being Earnest. The Second Master's Shakespeare productions (recently Julius Caesar and Pericles) are also a regular fixture.

Modern Language plays are strongly encouraged, and we have now established an annual production directed by a top year boy. The Spanish play Fuente Ovejuna, and the French Les Mains Sales have been produced. Other recent French plays, directed by the Head of French have been Le Sicilien, La Belle Vie and Le Malade Imaginaire. Also, a professional Parisian troupe brought us Tartuffe, and a Spanish company, Don Quixote and Frankenstein. Outside companies have brought us: Wham Bam! (Cambridge Footlights, with three Old Wykehamists), Imogen & Wreckers (Edinburgh Festival), La Boheme (Beaufort Opera); Hamlet- the Musical! (Cambridge Univ/ Old Wykehamist); A Paradise for Exiles (Eton-based Keats-Shelley double bill); Trust Byron; and Oedipus.

The heart of Winchester theatre lies in the boys' productions, and directors queue up for QEII slots. Past shows have been: Journey's End, Habeas Corpus, A Number, Strangers on a Train, Otherwise Engaged, Of Mice and Men, The Philanthropist, Reservoir Dogs, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Endgame, Garcia & The Lyric's Tale (boy scripts), The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hang On Mr Bugson (boy script), Adam and Eve, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Dwarfs, Neville's Island, Creatures in Cream (boy revue), Zoo Story, Bugsy Malone, Black Comedy, Glengarry Glen Ross, Dealer's Choice, Cinderella (boy musical), The Birthday Party, Biloxi Blues, True West, and Absurd Person Singular. Boys also annually run a drama session for the Crown & Manor Boys Club in June, as well as acting in St Swithun's Girls' School shows. More extraordinary is the run of boy-produced summer holiday musicals in QEII, (2003-2008) Assassins, Guys and Dolls, Into the Woods, Oklahoma!, Kiss Me Kate and Calamity Jane. In addition, boy shows occasionally go up to the Edinburgh Festival.

Each year, usually in Common Time, there is a School Play, directed by the Director of Drama. Casts, drawn mainly from the top three years, range from 15 to 65. Three nights is the standard run, but the School Play has six performances. Parental attendance in QEII is high, not least for this major event, which can attract up to 400 families. Recent shows have been: Twelfth Night, The Crucible, Oh What A Lovely War!, King Lear, Great Expectations, Love's Labour's Lost, Death of a Salesman, The Hired Man (musical), Much Ado About Nothing, Our Country's Good, Twelve Angry Men (winner of NODA Best Youth Production 1997), Hamlet, Racing Demon, and The Recruiting Officer.

There are also plenty of opportunities for those who want to become involved in stage management, set construction, lighting, sound effects, musical composition and make-up. There is now a full-time theatre technician/carpenter.

A stream of Old Wykehamists go on to act for Simon Taylor's Winchester College Players, a company that performs every two or three years in the Warden's Garden and the Minack Theatre, Cornwall. 1993-2007 performances have been: Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Great Expectations, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. A similar stream has recently gone into the profession as actors, theatre and opera directors, a company manager, a production company owner, Old Vic Theatre manager, etc.

Future Plans

  • Modernisation and renovation of the Queen Elizabeth II Theatre. We seek to raise at least £1.5 million.
  • Present a school production in the new Winchester Theatre Royal, or go on tour to UK schools, the Edinburgh Festival or the USA. A tour to the States is planned for March-April 2009.