Sacred Heart College’s commitment and passion for the arts in education is reflected by four notable events on its busy cultural calendar. These are the TheatreLink project (a project that is managed by the Education Department of the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York), an appearance at the Crawford Schools Festival of Dramatic Excellence (FEDA) at the Joburg Theatre in May, the annual Sacred Arts Festival and the Matric projects in June.
Sacred Heart College is privileged to be one of the three international schools taking part in the TheatreLink programme, with only 20 schools participating in total worldwide. The project enables students in geographically remote locations to study and create theatre together. During production phase, students learn about and are assigned theatre jobs (actor, stage manager or designer). At the project’s culmination, the author school, the producer school and its teaching artist, use video conferencing technology to view and discuss the live streamed performance with their partner school. The process is guided by the Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City-based teaching artists, who confer and collaborate with classroom teachers and communicate with the students through the site.
“It’s an amazing process for the learners,” said Sacred Heart College drama teacher, Tamara Schulz. Prior to the TheatreLink project, FEDA was an exciting evening for the grade 11 class. The class presented its play, “The Gray Area”, produced as part of the TheatreLink project. The Sacred Arts Festival, which took place on June 6 and 7, was a spectacular conglomeration of the arts. It was a great success, with two days of creativity and fun-packed workshops and performances run by professionals in their fields.
On June 21, the matric drama season culminated in a successful evening of performances. Sophie Robertson wrote a hilarious and thought-provoking play entitled, “Go Fish”, which revolved around the myths we create about the afterlife. Khanya Mills presented a fantasy tale with an environmental theme and Dominique Johnson’s experimental piece entitled, “Six Above”, impressed the external examiner with its adventurous staging.
All three pieces were written and directed by the grade 12 learners. The external examiner, Renos Spanoudes, commented on the level of originality and professionalism that the productions displayed.
