Drama Club & High School Theatre | British vs American | Evan Edinger & Daniel J Layton
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- čas přidán 18. 11. 2023
- Dan and I chat about being in high school musicals and plays in the US vs the UK :)
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Big thanks to Daniel J for joining me today! :) / @danlayton
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If you're new to my channel and videos, hi! I'm Evan Edinger, and I make weekly "comedy" videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I'm also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I'll see you next Sunday! :)
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Evans mom being a teacher explains a lot.
I LOVE the comment, "Joseph just stands there and watches as his wife gives birth to another man's child"
PERFECT.
I grew up in Hawaii, so I was lucky enough that some of our school “musicals” were about Native Hawaiian stories and some of the students who were Native Hawaiian and knew the language, sung in Hawaiian and danced the hula. I was never in them because I have stage fright and I did not wanna step on anyone’s culture, but still it was very fascinating to watch.
5:03
I actually went to the same school as Dan (I thought it sounded very similar before he named it!) and interestingly some things have definitely changed since he left. I left five years ago but this is how things were when I left.
We had multiple productions per year of varying scale. One would be a musical that all year groups could take part in and then there would be another play that might be restricted to just upper school or lower school. We had a real variety of comedy, drama and some experimental stuff. We also had at least two showcases a year on top of this with a mixture of music, monolouges, orchestra, choir and acted scenes. And we would also do a pantomime on top of this each year too.
The school has also subsequently gotten an awesome new performing arts centre with a black box studio and loads of new spaces for rehearsals. Annoyingly, when I left, we didn't have drama as an A-level, but I started a campaign to get it on the curriculum. I also ran the lower school drama club and when I left there was a massive increase in participation and scale of shows with some fantastic teachers running it.
But, most importantly, I hope Dan will be happy to hear that the new headmaster tried to make it to every show that was put on and they were quite supportive of arts at the school.
(PS - you shouldn't complain about us not having a swimming pool as the leisure centre was just outside the back gate 😂)
Massive exception to the rule here - I went to one of about three state schools in the UK that had an auditorium (it was a new-build school that had a lot of money left over post-financial crash). We also had access to a renowned youth music charity who hired professional musicians to teach kids. By the time I was 18, I was Grade 8 on French horn and had performed in the pit for several musicals throughout secondary school (My Fair Lady, Hairspray, Les Mis, Phantom, Our House, Urinetown and West Side Story), not to mention the bands and orchestras, some of which went on tour around Europe.
Daniel’s comment about where you’re located being important really makes sense - there are some parts of the UK where non-STEM subjects are so underfunded, bc of an impetus to focus on subjects that can be easily marked for school rankings, music and drama have basically vanished. Every year, more and more schools are scrapping GCSEs and A levels in the arts bc nobody wants to do them and no teacher would put themselves through it, and it just makes me really sad. Music changed my life as a kid - it was the reason I had a social life at all.
I went to a fairly typical UK comprehensive school in the 00s and everyone was completely indifferent to school productions. There would be an annual musical or play held in the assembly hall, but I never heard anyone talk about it and the only people who attended were families of the cast. It wasn't looked down upon or anything - I genuinely don't think many people gave it any thought whatsoever. I sometimes wonder if things changed once Glee became popular, but it seems like even less time is allocated to performing arts in British schools now
Great vid - goes without saying BUT…
I’m here to call out how brilliant that ad was done. The acting - on point (including the non-speaking parts), but the effort that must have gone into making that dialogue flow so naturally back and forth with yourself, was top tier.
And the script - from the funny way to slide into it, to the “hey there’s only 10 seconds left” breaking the 4th wall type thing - genius. Loved it.
They certainly got their money’s worth from you with that solo production.
Coming from a very big high school theatre department in Maryland, Evan’s experience is pretty close to ours. The only thing different is that our pit orchestra was all high school kids (and yes they were usually from the marching band). The students did EVERYTHING except direct, which makes sense since we were there every single day. It really taught me a lot beyond just acting, and it was such a great way to make friends. It’s an underrated extracurricular for kids even if they aren’t into performing.
I was kinda lucky and went to two schools in the UK (I moved just before GCSEs) that both had huge drama & music departments.. so did a lot of productions similar to Glee.
Having said that, I know they where an exception. The head master for one of them had a lot of links to the BBC, so always made the productions great and seem to use them as a way to get talented trama students a way to show off to BBC casting teams. The second school's head of drama ran the biggest drama group outside of school, so I think took it as a matter of pride that any school production had to be something that wouldn't look out of place if seen at a local theater.
It's not (just) what you know,it's who you know is,I suspect even more important in show business,or getting into it. I'd guess.
I'm at a secondary school in Leeds and my school cares A LOT about our drama. We recently got a rebuild, our old hall had a fairly large raised stage and lots of space for seats, but it was also the lunch hall. Our new auditorium is smaller, and doesn't have a raised stage but has lots of tiered seating (seats about 300 people). We have wings but they're fairly small. The wings back on to the gym and a random corridor, so we sometimes have to run all the way around the auditorium, while doing a quick change. We usually do a yearly musical but this year we're doing two (SIX - Teen Edition and High School Musical). We used to do rehearsals from October to June, for a summer show, but last year we did Nativity! the Musical so they did it at Christmas. Our sets are usually just a slightly raised bit at the back, and our costumes are usually ordered online then customised by a few Year 10s, who also do any makeup for lead actors. Most shows are open to the whole school, except for our current one (SIX) which they randomly made Year 9+, the school band and the head of music play all the music, and we have auditions but you probably won't get a big role unless you're in Year 9/10 or above. Sorry for the long comment, just felt like it.
where i lived in the us my elementary school technically had "plays" which everyone was forced to participate in, like about respecting your elders or recycling and some people would try out for speaking lines or singing parts like they are the dying sea turtle choking on plastic or something but pretty much everyone was forced as ensemble. not until middle school there were real plays you would try out for. Evan's auditorium looks pretty similar to my schools, but we never had professional orchestra people, it was just the student orchestra. we had theater class for credit and then drama club was extracurricular
Time for another round of my favourite game “Theater kid or Gay”
If I recall correctly, the correct answer in this case is theater kid and not gay
Never ever had anything like this when I was a kid, we never had extracurricular anything when I was growing up. We're talking about the sixties and seventies here, but we're talking about single income and five kids here. Posh schools you might have got it.
Your or is inclusive right?
I went to a (state) school in the UK that was specifically signed off as a specialist performing arts school (still a normal school, just extra funding for our performing arts department), so we did have a fancy auditorium and stage etc. Our school orchestra did the music for shows and our music teacher conducted. It was a big deal to be in the show because you got multiple days off lessons for the final rehearsals. We also sent our orchestra and choirs to play/sing in Europe. I'm sure other schools did this too, but I'm discovering it's not quite the norm I had assumed it was.
Several people who were at my school (not my friends) went on to act on the West End, one was on the tv show where they competed for a role, I can't remember which role.
My experience is somewhere between you two: we had a dedicated auditorium and stage crew made sets (though on a budget) & such, but if a band was needed, whatever band students were available had to do it
Daniel ranting about people singing an extra ‘of kings’ is just like Dodie in the assemblies video 😭
American here. I was born in 1965 and there used to be Christmas (non-religious, usually Santa Claus or similar) plays when I was really young. We also did a Christmas music concert and we sang all kinds of Christmas songs including religious songs, Silent Night and others. The older I got, the plays went by the wayside and the Christmas concert is still a thing, at least in the western US.
The "Sing Hosannah to the King (of Kings)" is so true 🤣
UK here, left school in 2003, we didn't have any sort of drama class, drama club or school plays or productions. In year 3/4 we had a Christmas Nativity but that's about it.
We didn't have any clubs at all
Loved that look of panic on Evan's face "wait... are we in an ad read?!"
Having gone to a private school in the uk, our end of year theatre productions were very similar to Evans, if not taken even more serious. We also had professional musicians but they were mixed with our best musicians in the school as well
In primary school we did some full productions. Bugsy Malone was one I remember being in when I was about 10 years old.
i love that this guy has the same >:( reaction as dodie @ ppl saying an extra of kings
This is wild to me because I went to a tiny school in regional Australia. We had “drama class” in primary school and did school assemblies. But nothing in high school. If you wanted to do any actual drama/acting, you went to the community theatre. Usually with a bunch of old people as well.
DAN!!! Didn't think I'd see you here! Huge NRB fan.
That was so fun! I felt very included as Dan would look over to see how “we” doing. TY!
I went to a state school in the UK, finished school in 2008, and I don't think our school had any kind of drama or plays or anything. We had a stage in the main hall, but it was only ever used for music.
So in primary school we had a drama club that you had to audition for and they did 1 play a year in the summer and it was ALWAYS Shakespeare. So I have vivid memories of being 10 years old and having to learn all my lines to Midsummer Night’s Dream as Hermia. Now I look back and think who came up with this craziness because the lines were soooooo difficult 😭
My primary school had an after school performance club for KS2 (ages 7-11) where at the end of the school year we would have 2 performances, 1 of which was filmed by a company (I think?) and parents could buy the dvd. In my final year, I had a solo singing role and that was the first year they stopped filming it due to the cost. My parents and I were so angry as the school never told parents so none of the parents filmed it themselves. I'm from the north (Yorkshire)
In my school the main hall was also the gym & where the stage was & where exams were taken. It was essentially a largish rectangular room with markings on the floor for indoor P.E & a stage at the front (which was the short end of the rectangle). So if rehearsals/plays/exams/assemblies were going on it was outside P.E only & you had to be incredibly quiet when using the changing rooms (which were next door). The upper years would have to set up the room for assemblies, exams & plays. Each class for P.E woukd help set it up the way the teacher wanted - usually being as slow as we could get away with without being yelled at.
So weird hearing Maidstone getting a shout out on CZcams. Especially maidstone girls grammar which was my school! So many memories of that hall Dan showed in the videos 😅
When I was 11/12, I was part of the backstage crew (yeah, I was *that* bad at singing and acting) of Westside Story. I went to rehearsal everyday during half term, but didn’t go at the weekend because that’s when I saw my dad. They cut me for missing the Saturday rehearsal. 😢
I love the comparisons of the two theaters! We had a gym with a full stage, which feels like it’s halfway between the ones shown
I loved this video Evan, good job also the ad at the end was hilarious
In the UK (back in the day), it came down to the facilities & resources each school had, and the enthusiasm of the senior staff for productions. My school, we had a school musical each year that was fairly average, plus there were occasional plays from the drama students that were completely unadvertised to the main school. My parents' (teachers) school had an amazing head of drama that did an astonishing musical each year with built-out stages, astonishing sets, full lighting rigs, and pupils full on competing for parts. Also had regular plays, typically in the round, with lots of non drama pupils involved with lighting, sound, sets, etc that had people from RsC and local theatre companies coming to see. Both comprehensive schools. Very different.
New schools have tended to be built without the huge halls the 50s schools had.
A guy I went to school with has been pretty regularly in the West End. He is the most talented person I've ever known so I'm very glad that it's happening for him.
I grew up doing drama in France, and I went to uni in the UK and US so this has always been a fascinating topic to me because of the different types of drama kids it builds. In France, most schools don’t have a drama club except maybe in high school - teachers might still orchestrate productions but then usually you have to be part of it whether or not you want to. Most people who do theatre do it at a “conservatoire” outside of school, where the standards are usually quite high but you take classes instead of being involved in productions, which is quite a big difference in terms of relationship to the craft. We also had 0 budget for our showings, and had to do everything ourselves (no costume team, no crew…) In many ways, I feel like I have less experience with competitiveness, auditions and actual “productions” than my UK and US counterparts, but I also feel my theatre education before university was somewhat more rigorous.
Always delighted to see our Jam That Jampion showing up where I wouldn’t expect!
Absolutely loved that ad read! 😂
When I was in elementary school we not only did a Christmas/winter show, but we also did a show in the spring time near the end of the school year. Every grade participated, but older kids( 4 and 5th grade)were the only ones who had speaking parts.
In primary my year group put on a performance at the local theatre (I think we did Matilda the musical?), they also helped us put on the production, so I think I had quite a unique experience compared to a lot of British people. We got to tour where they were building the sets for west end shows etc, full tour of the theatre itself, go into the dressing rooms, work with professionals. I genuinely think it’s why I love the arts now.
I mean we did that Give Me Oil In My Lamp song as part of school assemblies in the Come and Praise songbook, we barely did any drama in primary school just the Nativity once. Only started doing proper drama in secondary school from 10-11 years old. By proper drama I mean being trees and, I kid you not, speaking to Jimmy who lived under the floorboards, was hungry, and really wanted a pizza.
We had a fantastic media department with a tv studio called The Goldfish Bowl. A tv in every class and the head would give a broadcast every morning. Students would make programmes of plays, interviews, etc. This was back in the late 80s/early 90s . Sharnbrook Bedfordshire U.k. the school was sponsored by Texas Instruments. It still has it today with an even bigger studio than we had.
I did "Damn Yankees" when I was in high school. I played "the guard" which was a bit part. I also sang in the choir and danced. I sang in choir starting with church choir in second grade and continued until I graduated from university.
Our school hired a barricade for our production of les mis (in the uk). we also made sets out of scaffolding that a company had to come in and set up. We got to climb on some big tower scaffolds when we were doing a midsummer night's dream. Don't know where the heck we got the budget from though.
My sixth form experience at a private school was much more like Dan's though - not much staging and using things that were already in the props cupboard.
My school was so tiny that we struggled to get people to join Drama Club and teachers to oversee it. We did our plays in the commons of our high school, except for the one time we went somewhere else. Then, my Junior year, many of the people experienced in making sure drama club ran smoothly left or graduated, there was about 4 willing actors, which diminished to about 2 people as the year went on, and the club kinda just fell apart. We didn't produce a play after that, which was sad, but it's the way it goes sometimes.
At my school in sheffield (uk) hired out the crucible for our school plays so anyone involved got to be on an actual theatre stage which was pretty cool. We did have a specialty for performing arts though so that could be why
Oh yayyy I wasn’t expecting to see Dan here (I literally only know him from NRB Blood on the Clocktower games lol)
I'm old, like 55 olde. I was in elementary school in the mid 70s to early 89s. In 1977 there was a huge tax reorganization that effected police, fire, EMS, and schools. So in the 4th grade, I suddenly found myself in a new school with teachers that had been pulled from 3 different before times schools, new principal, no cultural identity, no traditions. One of the 4th grade teachers was a music teacher in her former life, and she decided that the entire 4th grade would do music for their arts section. That was a choir of 240 9 year olds. It was a bit chaotic, but it actually worked. The next year, that was done away with, but she held audions for Oliver! 10 year old Steve Isaacs, future MTV VJ, star of the traveling company of Tommy, vocalist in Dave Navaro's Panic Channel, played the Artful Dodger. I was in the chorus. Our production was very good. The next year, 6th grade, we did The Sound of Music, also a great production. Then I promoted to Middle School and did choir for 1 semester as a soprano. Then things started to change and singing was no longer possible. So I switched to French Horn and stuck with it through college, with fall semester switches to Melophone for marching season. So where was I going with this... ah hell, I don't know. Oh ya, we did some kind of secular performing arts starting really young.
In one of the last years of primary school my class did put on a play of the Snow Queen. It was mandatory so I was a scene shifter as my anxious butt did not wanna be in it xP
I live in the UK and my daughters went to two different secondary schools and both had proper stages/auditoriums and were state schools.
Im also from new jersey, our pit was the school band and orchestra, and i feel like our sets werent as high end. But my high school was a huge football school so thats where moat of the money went.
Im from Warrington aswell, and the high school I went to was actually quite good for drama. The hall for performances and plays was pretty big (had the chairs that go higher every row, might have been an auditorium idk). The 2 drama teachers we had were really good. I also went to a drama club, I dropped out tho because I lost interest. So it's still pretty good up here I'd say. (Responding to 21:00)
Elementary school did a school-wide play of wizard of oz. Middle we didn't have any clubs u did the performances if you were in the elective class (band/orchestra, drama). High school was a mix of clubs and classes drama club did plays choir and show choir did concerts.
Evan, I am from Wyoming, and I feel like you read my mind. Yes, my experience was more like Dan's.
My secondary school’s musicals were slightly higher budget than Dan’s and took place in the autumn, they had proper in a round seating (stage pieces forming an incline with the assembly chairs put on top), a small stage in the middle of the hall and sometimes a larger stage with a set pieces at the back (my school hall was still kinda built for theatre so there was a curtain with a small backstage area behind the large stage (though the nearby theatre classroom was used as the dressing room)). The only real set dressing we had were banners made by the art department hanging from the ceiling and the projection screens used for assemblies as a sort of basic visual backdrop (though those screens were above the audience). We didn’t have an orchestra or musicians and just had the actors sing to a pre-recorded backing track, though there was a proper sound guy with a booth (a platform behind one of the stalls). The casting worked like Dan said, everyone who auditioned and didn’t get a part became a member of the ensemble. During my five years at the school, all shortened one act school versions, they did Cats, Guys and Dolls, Annie, and High School Musical (they didn’t do one while I was in year 8, apparently it was supposed to be Beauty and the Beast but it must’ve gotten cancelled or something), I didn’t take part or even go to see any of the shows (beyond the little two or three song previews they gave students) and a small part of me kinda regrets that.
Drama is pretty big at my middle school. We have a theater. Drama class is for credit. We're moving into a new building in the spring. I've heard the theater is next level. I'm in a wealthy district outside Nashville. I think most districts around here have theater in middle school, too.
I was in uk state comprehensives for Primary we had the Junior play you did in year 3 and Senior play in year 6 which were part of our curriculum, and then in secondary there was an extra curricular musical with an unauditioned chorus every year which was always a bit extra like we had a semi-professional orchestra . You also had inter school competitions and showcases like the one act Shakespeare festival. Seems it varies wildly from school to school.
1:50 as a brit who went to a catholic primary school i can say, this was a certified banger as well as shine on me
I was the Mayor in a Junior school version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. So it is not always a nativity.... Oh, and I wasn't chosen for my senior school play - but I was the production publicity officer and piloted the "Vibroslap" for the musical accompianment to the play!
I loved doing musicals in primary school (I'm 34, UK). I can't even tell you if there were any musicals or plays in secondary school - I don't remember any outside of drama class. We did have a big stage in the hall at both the upper and lower schools, but they were used for lunch and assembly as well (in lower school the kitchen and hatch where you got your school dinners was at the back of the stage lol, no fancy backstage area there).
Despite my complete lack of drama skills they held auditions for Skins in the sixth form I went to and I did have a go, it was terrifying 😆 my friend Ollie got a main role though.
Edit: I've just now remembered that both schools I went to had a "drama studio" that was like a big room with black walls and moving curtains? It was our tutor room (homeroom) for year 7. It might have been used for performances but not that I remember.
Why did I love the ad 😂
I miss drama classes so much.
Absolutely fascinated that there's no comments mentioning that story about Patty Walters. I thought for sure people would take that and run with it
Daniel, a lot of American high schools built after say 1990 have large auditoria and separate theatre space. My own high school was built in 1988 and I started two years after. Below the theatre was the music/theatre department with rehearsal space and classrooms. Evan's high school theatre is actually slightly larger than mine but that's accurate.
Our theatre also had a pit, but it was a proper pit, sunken before the stage and the lowest level of the auditorium. But unless Evan's musicals, ours were made up of the music students (because our school was that large-ish -- we had 2,000 students, but that's not the biggest in the county, and there are now several schools with more now).
We had no pool, Daniel, but we had multiple fields. And we used a local swim club for our swim team (that has a fall/winter collapsible bubble for year round swimming.)
My high school had all kinds of band, drama, choirs and whatnot. I did choir from middle school through most of high school. We auditioned for choirs in high school and I did great on choir tests and was not at all tone deaf, but I could never get a solo and never got into the higher up choirs. Idk if I was just average at singing or if the high school choir teacher just didn't like me.
But we had 4 concerts a year and every Christmas concert all the choirs at the end would wrap around the auditorium and sing this song, Peace Peace, together. I think the 1st soprano and altos would sing peace peace peace, peace on earth or something like that and then the 2nd sopranos would sing this whole Silent night part. I'm not sure what the guys sang, I never got into the fancy, best choir in the school.
In elementary school we had plays that we'd do as a class or the whole grade did together. Once we had a school wide decades choir type thing at the high school. I was in 3rd grade and we got the 50s and sang Elvis songs lol. The high school auditorium was pretty large. It was sorta like what Evan showed, but around the entrance and up above it, there were even more rows of seats.
i wish my school had productions because i study costume design now and would have loved to do costume for a school production
I'm from England and my upper school had an auditorium (very surprising as it was a shithole). Also, my primary school had a swimming pool. Which I don't think was super uncommon in the 80s/90s (though many of them fell out of use later as they were expensive to upkeep)
I was the narrator in every play from year 1-6 (except yr3 because I was in hospital) because I was good at reading and did a drama club that had taught me to project my voice lol. We also did plays other than the nativity as I got older like one year we did a bride of frankenstien pantomime for some reason. This was also a CofE primary but no one was super religious and we were allowed to just sit quietly if we didn't want to join in with they prayer bit which I did not. Loved the hymns though and when the vicar would come tell us kids versions of bible stories.
In Belgium we don't have any drama club or school theatre in school. It's not a thing here to have extra activities in school.
If you want to do theatre, singing, sports (except for the weekly gym class) or whatever you did that outside school.
A lot of schools here are in the middle of towns so there are no fields around them, no auditorium or anything, definitely no pool.
When I hear Evan talk about how much money went into theatre... no wonder school is expensive in the US.
I don't know if this for every Australian, but I went to a primary school that every year each grade (starting from grade 1) had to do a dance to a song based on a theme. One year it was cultures and we had to dance to popular songs to that culture, another year it was musical and we had to dance to a musical song from a movie and then we did those dance at a theater at the end of the year.
At my primary school i have memories of each year group doing their own part of the Christmas play, usually reception did a nativity, the rest was a mish mash. In year 6 i had a fun role, the premise was i was 1 of 2 elves who needed to find Santa's letters. So we sort of appeared in everything it was utterly bonkers.
Each class would also do an assembly once a year.
Then... in my high school i remember every year there seemed ro be a big show, i auditioned for little shop and forgot the words and didnt get cast obviously i just froze, but the shows we did were October's Children (terrible), Guys and Dolls (meh), Return to the Forbidden Planet (Epic), Fame, and by the time i made it to year 13, what do they do...?
Oliver. 😑
The year above had some super talented kids so i never had chance at school, but i did play in the band for Rttfp and Fame and had a blast. We alternated each year between the biys and girls schools.
Luckily i was part of a fantastic youth theatre where i learned a lot.
School also did extra curricular plays, and had a solid performing arts department, 8 of us did drama a level. I was really lucky.
In terms of year 6 plays in the UK, My primary school did Shrek and my one line as a angry mob villager was "You mean that big, fat, ugly creature." pointing at the person who played Shrek. Pretty sure someone posted the whole play to youtube.
My school is so poor we don't have drama or theater cause we can't afford it 💀 (american here)
Yes the poor schools. Some congress members complain about public school, but cut funding all the time and at the same time pass laws of more and more responsibilities put on schools. So you are left with schools that cut all arts because they are required to do all this extra core stuff with half the funding that school used to get.
So at my school (US, but in GA) we still had the auditorium and pit band like you had in NJ, but with high school band students mostly, maybe with a few local music teachers or teachers that had some involvement with music in the community (church, community band, private instrumental instruction, etc.). But due to funding cuts, the pit sadly didn't include any orchestral strings. Daniel is right on about the marching band/concert band to pit pipeline, at least in my experience.
But it is true that if you wanted to participate in the drama side of the musical you would get the side eye from the band/music director. Was always jealous that chorus people were able to be more involved in drama than band people.
Makes me wonder if you would be able to do a future video about band culture in the US vs the UK? Love the content thus far!
ARE WE IN AN AD READ 😂😂😂 ah dang he got me
2:13 makes Muffin Time make so much more sense
My school is maybe an in between of your two. Our stage was in the gym. We has a storage room for all the theatre set stuff. Also no one was cut because we were a small school
From Wyoming, 20:49 is spot on.
Singing and Theater are rarely connected in Germany. There is a special category for musical theater and that would not be part of school curriculum maybe for the singers but not for the theater people.
The most common school is a choir and classic orchestra. Sometimes there was a theater group which would do a play, scene, never with music though.
It is quite strange for me to have singing considered a fundamental part of being an actor.
For being in a musical you would need to go the classical singing route and take acting lessons.
upstate NY-er here. Our high school didnt have a marching band, so our pit orchestra was made up of the top tier music students in our school. Just like for the stage show, there was a whole audition process to be in the pit, and not everyone made it. For context; my graduating class was about 325 kids.
My high school actually did a $1 million renovation (thanks to a generous alumni donation) about 10 years ago to completely rebuild/renovate the auditorium to include a bigger stage with trapdoors and 3 story-tall backstage area that allowed for scenes where the actors needed to be on a wire & fly around (think Peter Pan or Moulin Rouge). A pit area that mechanically sunk below the main floor was also installed, as well as new tiered seating that allowed for a 1200-person audience capacity, including a balcony section.
All that said- my particular year was the one who had to live through the constant construction, and we graduated before it was completed, so that was a bit of a nightmare-ish bummer. I'm glad the kids behind me get to see the benefits of it though.
American here who went to school in the 90s-2000s. We had plays we did K-5 then actual drama club and productions in high school 9-12. Christian school K-2 for me was mostly just singing though.
I went to college in Maidstone!!!
Did any other americans do the Revolutionary War musical in elementary school? We did it in like 4th grade I think. I remember the Boston Tea party song was like "one lump or two? How do you take your tea? Just one way will do, at the bottom of the sea!"
Fun to see the Professor in another role besides PartsFunKnown and Wrestletalk. Never imagined you two to be friends. Maybe you can show up at No Holds Board.
Don't forget No Rolls Barred!
We did have a skit or play for each grade in America. Even in kindergarten.
From the UK and went to a school with very average productions. Most of the plays were done by people in drama GCSE or A-level and pretty much no one else cared. And the music was just a CD player, no musicians involved at all lol. Would have been cool to be more involved, though. I would have loved to do stage design or something!
School I went to had a stage and room behind’s was a boy’s changing room and to get on stage for School Eisteddfod you had to walk in thought boys changing rooms then get in your place. It involvements was mandatory except for year 11s at time and it included people in your house colours included majority of staff at the school as well. It involved acting,dancing, singing and improv. It was a Welsh medium Secondary school. Unfortunately I still remember it. When it was my group’s turns. Yes some did solos as well.
not all private schools in the UK are public schools! It's only some of the older and more prestigious private schools that were originally boys-only (some of them are now co-ed to a greater or lesser extent), and mostly originally boarding schools
In my primary school everyone every year got involved with different plays. We had the pied piper, Rockerfella and all kinds! It was usually for Christmas but not Christmas related. - And that continued in high school, where we still did Christmas plays every year but it was stuff like legally blonde, grease etc! And for sixth formers, they would have to write their own script and perform their own play for charity week near Christmas! Those were always hilarious since it was based on fairytale stories and popular characters as well as the top 10 songs of the year. I remember the gangnam style and what does the fox say featuring once 🤣 especially when the Santas reindeer stole the Christmas wish star so Santa couldn’t deliver presents to everyone! And they jumped into different fairytale books like Alice in wonderland trying to find the star that was stolen and hidden! 🤣 dude, the sixth formers every year were so creative, they had like a 12 person writing team for the script every year to make the best script possible. Those were the golden times. Our school even recorded them and you could buy the CDs of those performances. (Sadly I was too poor for that lmfao.)
I know that when I went to school, the Drama club was sponsored by local businesses. Do they do that in England?
I’m from Illinois we did not have professional musicians we had to have the best band students in the school be our pit band
The arts get NO funding in schools in the U.K.
My music teacher was buying equipment with his own money, and there was no real space in the school for music or drama.
For language learner :
Part 1 and Part 2 :
Part 1 of the webinar : "All about input and output"
Part 2 of the webinar : "All about input and output"
Dr. Florencia Henshaw
8:47 when I was at school we were forced to do drama until year 9. I hated it 😭
My school (UK) didn’t put on plays 😢 I feel like if they had, I would have been a theatre kid
i was blessed enough to go to a school in england that has its own theatre and leisure centre, its a PA and sport school, even some of the classrooms had stage pieces you could put together and lighting rigs and stuff, so we'd often have small touring shows come in to the school and perform and sometimes they would involve the students and be classed as student productions, with the PA and music teachers choreographing a play that an actual company had written (like Robin Hood and Footloose) so the students got to work with professional actors and actresses. I was a drama student so could audition if i wanted to but my anxiety got in the way (and i failed my drama gcse too, naturally. I wanted to do the more technical side of it cause i thought the school would offer that since we are fortunate enough to have the technology
edit: by pa and sport school i don't mean its a private school or anything, it just has 'specialist status' as an arts school.
It has the facilities therefore it attracts a lot of students who like that stuff and converts a lot of students to those subjects and just generally has bit more funding for those areas, with some talented people having gone there e.g. Dele Alli
I went to a very diverse area so at my primary school so we didn't do nativity and instead we had each year do a song or talent thing that was then performed to parents as a big show
Would love to see a British v American video on election systems in both countries (maybe next March or Nov, or Jan 2025 if parliament keeps delaying their election). As an American living in the UK I was so surprised how national elections are called by parliament and not just every few years. I would avoid politics but bringing attention to the differences would be interesting. Also, I think it would be a good reminder for Americans living abroad that if they are still paying taxes then they definitely should still vote!
American here YES we did have school plays in grammar school
What I’ve learned from these videos is that you (Evan) had a very unique experience and really has no idea what American Schools are like
My high school was like Evan's school - the larger one. And I've been to many schools that were like either of Evan's schools and I am in America. He is talking with a Brit about British schools vs American schools where Drama is concerned. Evan is spot on about American schools. My dad was a teacher for 30 years, and because he taught at many different schools, I got to see many different schools. I also was in Basketball (rubbish at it!) and got to see many many schools and how they function. Sure, not every school has a good auditorium. Sure, some schools used the gym for productions. I've been to those schools too. But that does not mean that every school is this way or that way.