Drama

We want pupils to enjoy engaging critically and practically with a range of drama at a high level and to produce excellent performance work in which the whole College may share.

Click here for the calendar and the review of our drama productions.

Drama unlocks the imagination, intellect, empathy and courage.  It carries the potential to challenge, to question and to bring about change.  Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. 

It is therefore the aim of the Department to reflect these truths , both in its teaching at GCSE and Advanced Level.  We want all our performance work to be exciting and memorable, celebrating excellence and stimulating the whole College.

Our results bear this out.  At Advanced Level, 90% of our of pupils have achieved A or B grades over the past six years,  while at GCSE 70% of pupils have achieved A* or A grades over a similar period.  Not surprisingly,  many of our students go on to read Drama at university.

Productions are numerous and diverse.  Over the past five years we have staged works by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Pinter, Congreve, Farquhar, Wertenbaker, Bolt, Chekhov and Brecht. Recent highlights have been a glamorous staging of Cole Porter's witty musical ‘Anything Goes and Shakespeare's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream’.  We are also passionate about company-devised work and the performance of pupils’ own writing. We have mounted large-scale Broadway musicals and more intimate chamber works.  We have performed in our Great Hall, in our studio theatre space, outdoors, in cafes, in our chapel and in America.  For more information about Performing Arts at the College, click on the Performing Arts link above.

Drama is about human interaction and so our best resources are our staff. In addition to two subject specialist teachers, with particular interests in contemporary devised theatre work and naturalism, the department also employs an outstanding theatre technician and costume supervisor, both of whom have backgrounds in film, television and theatre.  We also have a well equipped studio space where much of our teaching takes place.