Senior Production – Hamlet – Coming Soon!

Rehearsals are well underway for the Senior Production of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. This 90 minute version, developed by Sport for Jove Theatre Company, will take place in Centenary Hall on Thursday 26, Friday 27 and Saturday 28 February at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available from Jane Wynn-Jones in the Music Department  and are $10 for students and $15 for adults. All elective Drama students should attend and HSC Advanced English students who are studying Hamlet should also make an effort to be there to help with their understanding of the play. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Hamlet Cast Workshop

From the 19 – 21 January, the cast of this year’s Senior production, Hamlet, began rehearsing what will prove to be an awesome and very different production. The highlight of our three day rehearsal camp was on the final day, when we had the privilege of working with one of the great Shakespearean actors/directors in the country, the founder of Australian Theatre Company’s Sport for Jove, Mr Damien Ryan. As we are performing his very adaption of the original text, it would be an understatement to say that we were somewhat nervous and keen to impress. However, he greeted and educated us in an incredibly friendly way, helped us analyse the texts and decrypt Shakespeare’s language that’s laden with metaphors and images. Mr Ryan mixed fun drama activities with the seriousness of acting, intertwined the characters and their emotions so they related to our own lives and helped us look beyond the text in order to deliver the lines convincingly.

Interestingly, he also gave us a contextual understanding of how innovative Shakespeare was for this time by comparing his incredibly complex and profound plays to the bawdy, childish material of theatrical works written only a few years prior to his birth. But perhaps most memorably, he emphasised the importance of collaborative efforts and a “team” mindset when piecing together a Shakespeare production (or indeed, any production). He said the entire cast of 19 must all work together and support each other as they would in any other team or ensemble.

After a few hours of exploring the language and concepts behind the play, we went into Centenary Hall and performed for him the skeleton of what we’d put together two days prior. As we performed, you could feel the cast applying the knowledge he had shared with us and giving it a go which lifted the energy and quality of the scene immediately. With Hamlet being a play about vengeance, hatred, faith, love, grief and ghosts, it can really only go up from here. Performing Shakespeare on stage is completely unique, and working with Mr Ryan has opened our eyes to new possibilities. We thank him greatly and appreciate the time he spent with us.

Jeremi Campese (11/MA)
Drama Student