During the September school holidays Elective and Co-Curricular Drama boys lead by Ms Tamara Smith, Mr Terence Priester and Mr Jeremy Green travelled to Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago to visit some of the biggest and best theatres in the world, and take part in a number of performance workshops. Black and White caught up with the boys to hear some of their reflections on the tour. 

The USA Drama Tour was by far one of the best experiences I’ve had and possibly ever will. The tour was an amazing experience for all 25 of us who had the pleasure to go. We started in the city that never sleeps and looked at some of the great attractions such as Time’s Square, The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty and Central Park with our tour guide Jeff who never failed to amaze us with his knowledge of the city and surprise us with new random facts. He really made the busy city come to life. In Chicago, we visited The Chicago Institute of Art and Millennium Park and at the Art Institute, many boys recreated scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In LA, we did a driving tour and went to the Hollywood sign where there is a selfie from almost every single student on tour. We also looked at Hollywood Boulevard and admired Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

The theatre and workshops were easily the highlights with lots of effort obviously put in by Ms Smith and the other teachers to get the shows that we did. Some of the shows we saw included Dear Evan Hansen (personally my favourite one!), The Taming of the Shrew, The Tales of Hoffman (an Opera at the Metropolitan Opera House), A View from The Bridge, Amateur Night at the Apollo and Improvised Shakespeare. The performances were of all sorts of styles and really gave us a view into how the performing arts can be in many different forms and this includes not just acting. The workshops we did were also exploring new ways of interpreting theatre with a course on dance and musical theatre, a course on ensemble work and working with others and finally a course on auditions for film and television. All the boys involved had so much fun as seen in some hilarious videos and pictures and everyone took away something from each course. They really helped me improve as an actor.

It was an amazing tour and we really had the time of our lives exploring the US with some of the best teachers in the school so a big thanks to Ms Smith, Mr Priester and Mr Green.

Sam Burkitt (10/FL)

I was incredibly lucky to be able to come on the Newington Drama Tour these holidays and it was fantastic. We visited all the major theatre and entertainment hotspots of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For many of the boys it was their first time in many of these places and for some it was their first time in America as a whole. We did great workshops in each city with a musical workshop with one of the ensemble members of Hamilton in New York, an ensemble and chorus workshop with The Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago and a film auditioning workshop in LA with members of the film industry there.

We also saw a wide variety of incredible shows including a modern take of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, The Tales Hoffman, a cultural experience of seeing Amateur Night at the Apollo, A View from the Bridge and the incredible Dear Evan Hanson which was a confronting and beautifully performed musical for us to see. We had not only experiences with Drama, but a lot of American culture too. We visited Time’s Square, The Statue of Liberty, Central Park (where we went rowing through the largest lake in the park) and the main theatre hotspots which was great. In Chicago, we had a guide take us around the city showing us history with the gangs, the Chicago fire and famous tragedies in the city as well as visiting the Art Institute of Chicago which for many boys was fun to see being fans of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Of course, in LA, we went down Hollywood boulevard and saw many of the fantastic movie studios and sets as well as going to Universal studios which was so much fun.

Overall, the tour was an incredible experience that I will never forget. I learnt a lot about American culture, advanced and expanded upon my skills in drama and made a lot of friends from other years. This was one of the best experiences I’ve had and I feel so lucky to have been a part of it.

Xavier Papps (10/MA)