Scoring at the ISA Drama Competition

In the Spring Term our dramatists gave excellent performances at the ISA Drama Competition hosted at another local school. Fryer students performed ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare whilst an original piece ‘Extra Time’, written by Year 10 student Sam, was adapted for the competition to include three more actors.

Charlotte in Year 8 and Sam in Year 10 have since received fantastic commendation for their performances, with Charlotte claiming the trophy for ‘Best Middle Girl Performer’ for her performance as Prospero and Sam picking up ‘Best Senior Boy Performer’ for his original play and role within it, ‘Extra Time’.

Speaking about ‘The Tempest’, the judge reported “We were treated to a strong start to the piece with a good script and nice sound effects. Charlotte was very self-assured in her role as Prospero and comfortable with Shakespeare’s language. She had a presence that gave her performance gravitas.

I was very impressed by her skill and maturity of character, which felt very professional. Doubling up the character of Ariel and putting them both in imaginative costumes worked really well. The two actors stayed perfectly in character, even when they were not the focus of attention. They gave us a thoroughly entertaining, fun and engaging performance, their characters being very well defined.”

Sam’s feedback was equally impressive with the judge commenting “This piece was very professionally executed from beginning to end. The character of Sam had a big part to carry, with a supporting cast backing up his performance. The script was superb and very professionally written. The choice and precision of words made every syllable count.

We as an audience really enjoyed the ‘dad’ being brought up on stage and given the increasingly humorous line “maybe son”. This piece was captivating to the end and the cast applause to the technical crew at the end did not go unnoticed. Very well done.” Sam’s request for audience participation was taken up brilliantly by cast member Josh’s father, Patrick, who agreed to take a small impromptu role!

Head of Drama, Peter Scoggins remarked “We have won two prominent awards for individual performances and received much praise from the judge in her reports for both the Middle and Senior productions that we gave. This is the first time that we have entered the competition and the recognition that we have received from the judge and audiences shows what wonderful talent we have at this school.”

Upon receiving their virtual certificates from Head, Matthew Judd during lockdown, Sam agreed that he was ‘very chuffed’ with the recognition and Charlotte reflected that “It was quite a lot to learn and it was all Shakespearean obviously, so it was quite difficult.” Congratulations to them both their great achievement!