Bard Without Boundaries Project
PYT
Exchange Trip to France
by Jennie McGregor, Associate Director, Perth Youth Theatre
At 8.30 am
on the 23rd of July 13 Senior PYT members (aged 16 - 19) arrived at Edinburgh airport donning
their much loved (!) bright green PYT
t-shirts. The group, accompanied by PYT tutors Jennie McGregor, Barry
Henderson, John Glancy, Sophie Kendrick
and young filmmaker Ryan Dewar, were about to set off on the first ever PYT
foreign exchange trip. Our final destination was the picturesque town of Tournon Sur Rhone in the
South of France where we would be performing an adaptation of Othello by Tim
Primrose entitled `TRUE` as part of a 2
week long Shakespeare festival. The trip proved to be an amazing experience for
us all. The weather was fabulous and the welcome we received was
fantastic. We spent 2 nights in a
campsite and then moved into a small hotel in the town for the rest of the stay.
Over the course of the week we participated in various theatre skills workshops
led by both groups, did a bit of sightseeing and also had the amazing opportunity
to watch 7 performances by professional and Youth Theatre groups from France, Morocco
and Germany.
The majority of performances were staged in a magnificent outdoor castle
courtyard - quite a daunting prospect for our company - but they were true professionals
and approached the challenge with bags of energy and absolutely no fear! After
our performance to an audience of over 100 French speakers the young company
received a well deserved standing ovation!
Theatre Du
Sycomore invited us to come and perform one of their senior members did a work
placement at Horsecross. We developed an
idea for an exchange project based around Shakespeare and breaking down
language barriers using the bard! Luckily, we were awarded a grant from the
Lefevre Foundation to make the project a
reality. Our company were paired with a group from Theatre Du Sycomore of young
people the same age . Their company performed the original version of Othello(
yes - in French!). Our hosts made us
very welcome and within 5 minutes of arriving the 2 groups of young people were
chatting over dinner and friendships began to form. By the end of the week
there were tears as we had to leave and say farewell to a gorgeous place and
wonderful people. The next stage of the
project will see the French young people coming to Perth to perform in April next year . This
time the project will focus on MacBeth (as we are in Birnam wood country after
all!!)
This
picture shows the 2 groups UNDER Le Pont
D`Avignon!
