Our school pupils have been rehearsing for an imaginative drama show which will be premiered to parents at the end of the spring term before going on tour.
The PaddleBoat Theatre Company have been working with our Key Stage 3 Expressive Arts Group to create a show about ‘Bob the Dog’, which will be premiered at our End of Term Open Day on Friday 31 March. Pupils then hope to tour their show at a professional theatre venue with the PaddleBoat Theatre Company.
They got their inspiration from a school trip exploring woodland habitats, then created the story about a lost dog searching for its owner.
This term’s focus has been ‘The Woods’. Pupils visited Forest and Beach in Kingsbridge, a centre where they explored woodland habitats, made fires and built shelters. Michael Smith, Paddleboat’s Tour Manger said:
“We asked pupils to bring their experiences back to the rehearsal room. Increasingly we have been trying to give the group more creative freedom, and more control in the devising process. This is the third term we have worked with the Academy’s Key Stage 3 Expressive Arts group now.
The group have really excelled, and fully created their own show about Bob the dog, who loses owners in a forest, and has to find his way back home. With the group we develop early ideas for a new show we are creating, and in turn we help them create a show of their own.”
Our Expressive Arts Class will be showing the production to parents and students at the end of term, before taking it on tour to a professional theatre venue to share with new audiences.
This latest production follows our students’ involvement in a show at Exeter Phoenix with PaddleBoat last year, entitled ‘A Little Man’s Holiday’, using non-verbal communication and British Sign Language (BSL). During their Expressive Arts classes, Exeter Deaf Academy’s talented Year 7, 8 and 9 students improvised scenes and creatively adapted the play with visual jokes and louder sound effects incorporating BSL into an imaginative script about pirate adventure.