The highlight of this week was taking our National Theatre Connections play The Changing Room on tour! As part of the NT Connections project, each group gets to transfer its play to a different venue – regional theatres which host their own mini Connections festivals. We were partnered with The Egg, which is part of the Theatre Royal, Bath. Of course, we’d already performed our play at a professional theatre, which is not standard for NT Connections plays, but it was still interesting to take it to a different venue. The Egg differs from the Everyman Studio in that it has a stage with an end-on audience and a small balcony, whereas in the Everyman Studio we were able to use its flexible layout to have our audience on three sides, which worked brilliantly for the play.

We had a brilliant day in Bath, with one or two unexpected moments! Having arrived at 10am, we had some time for rehearsal before a workshop with practitioner Lizzie who took the group through some work on LeCoq’s levels of tension. At the same time, one of our group was on her way to A&E with a suspected dislocated shoulder! Not part of the plan! Luckily, an x-ray showed that the shoulder was not dislocated, so she was strapped up and we were able to head back to the theatre. After a technical rehearsal in the afternoon, and dinner at Pizza Express, we performed that evening – injured shoulder and all – and were thrilled to discover that the playwright, Chris Bush, had travelled from Wales where she is currently working on another play, to watch our version of The Changing Room. Not only that, but after the performance, she came to meet us all and gave us some lovely feedback.

It was a long and intense day, but a fantastic experience, and our performance has had some seriously good feedback. Playwright Chris Bush tweeted that evening:

“Absolutely stunning production of my @NTConnections play #TheChangingRoom by @StagedoorLearn tonight, performed with such skill, delicacy and integrity. Thank you and congratulations!”

Another member of the audience, who was there to watch some of his daughter’s friends in another play emailed us to say:

“I visited The Egg on Thursday with my 18 y-o daughter, some of whose friends were appearing in the second of the plays that evening.

I just wanted to contact you to let you know I thought your students’ performance of The Changing Room was simply stunning. As a dad of four I found it incredibly powerful and moving. Tears, yes, for this 54 year old! Very funny too!

I don’t think there was a bad (or even average) performance and the way the cast all were in complete control and fully at ease with their roles was very impressive.

Please pass thanks and congratulations from Bristol to all those involved who made for such a memorable evening.”

Next up was supposed to be a performance for the AGM of the Everyman Theatre Association, but the snowy weather forced a postponement.

We have two weeks left before we break for Easter, during which we will be exploring Surrealism and Dali for the Workshop Performance unit of the BTEC, and watching Brighton Rock at the Everyman.