Drama

“More on that anon” – was the promise made at the end of my last post concerning our attempts to set up a new form of youth theatre in Victoria. That item was posted on June 1st and it is now September 9th. “Just what the heck is happening?” – I hear you cry! “How long is anon anyway?“.

OK – here is the lowdown…

As was detailed in the aforementioned post the UK has long benefited from a thriving youth theatre community, much of it supported by local authorities. The municipalities in BC (the equivalent of the UK’s LAs) tend – where they have a theatrical offering for young people at all – to buy in courses from the local commercial organisations.

I discovered late last year, however, in the course of my researches that the District of Saanich had just recently adopted a new Youth Development Strategy. This estimable document was couched in familiar language – its principles very much in accord with those that I myself espouse. My subsequent approach to them – after the usual period in which nothing at all appeared to be happening – led to a meeting with a particularly dynamic Youth Programmer who set up a gathering of like-minded people which included a young lady who was subsequently to become the other half of our team. The meeting also led to our contacts with the University of Victoria, Claremont Secondary School, the Belfry 101 program and the Kate Rubin Studio.

By early summer our fact finding mission into Victoria’s youth drama provision was complete and it had been decided that we would set up an after-school group at the Teen Lounge in the Saanich Commonwealth Centre. As Parks and Recreation (the department responsible for the municipality’s leisure centres) programs run in parallel with school terms our new venture would not start until September – which suited us well as it would give ample to time to develop the initial curriculum…

…which is exactly what we have been doing over the past months. We are at the time of writing less than two weeks from the date of our inaugural session and – in curricular terms – the structures are all in place. We will, naturally, be adding and developing the detail as we go along.

All efforts now switch to publicity, in an attempt to ensure that we do not find ourselves standing alone in an empty space – devoid of eager young creatives – with our session notes dangling impotently from our hands… wondering what to do with ourselves.

Our concern bears the title  – ‘Youth Performance Arts Collective’, which will be at once be abbreviated to ‘Y PAC’. This soubriquet may strike the gentle reader as being a little pompous – and that reader might have a point. The guardians of the public services in BC take their responsibilities seriously and are impressively earnest about what they do. I can live with that!

Any introduction of notes of irony can wait…

About a month ago I posted to this journal two missives – to be found here and here – in which I summarised the results of our researches into the opportunities for drama and theatre study and practice for young people in and around the Greater Victoria area. In the second such I promised that I would comment further as to what I perceived to be the gaps in that offering and had I not – as is ever the way – been overtaken by events (‘dear boy!’) I would already have fulfilled that pledge.

As was explained in the first of those posts, the provision throughout the secondary schools of Victoria and the Saanich peninsula would appear to be uneven. It is fair to say that private schools probably do rather better than do public (in the Canadian sense) schools – as is the case in the UK – and though there are definitely some institutions which are exceptional in dramatic terms, for others it is very much more of a lottery.

Outwith the school sector itself there are a number of professional organisations offering acting and stagecraft classes and other theatrical activities. These are – however – almost without exception commercial enterprises that charge termly or annual fees. These costs can quickly add up to a significant amount and, whereas for younger children such are normally borne by parents, when it comes to teenagers they may well be expected to make a contribution themselves.

It must be clear from the above that a significant proportion of the teenage population of Greater Victoria might well find themselves disenfranchised from such a valuable resource – either through not attending the right school or by not being able to afford these extra-curricula classes.

As far as I can determine there was no real echo in Canada of the Youth Theatre movement that spread rapidly across the United Kingdom (and some other parts of the world) during the 1960s and 1970s. There are, naturally, blazing exceptions, but by their very presence they merely illuminate the lack elsewhere.

Though the movement in Britain comprised groups established under a plethora of different contexts – some appended to mainstream theatres – some commercially run – some funded by the local authorities (municipalities) and so forth – it very rapidly became clear that these energetic bodies – often run by enthusiastic volunteers – offered so many benefits to young people in terms of personal growth, social development and the promotion of creativity that support for them quickly became widespread. Every self-respecting district, county and metropolis offered some sort of financial support to one or more of these groups – if only by making available some empty space in which their arts could be practiced.

That I am an enthusiast for the work done by these splendid bodies need hardly be mentioned. I spent upward of two decades as a facilitator at one such, wearing such a wide range of hats that I might have attempted the establishment of a millinery! As is so often the case with such voluntary work I am very sure that I got as much – if not more – from the whole adventure as did the cavalcade of youth that passed through our doors.

Which might – of course – go a long way to explaining why I am now trying to start something similar here in Victoria.

More on that anon…

In the first part of this post (which like so many such started out as a single succinct study until the habitual ramblings of my so-called style brought me to the realisation that I had probably already outstayed my welcome… (See what I mean?)) I painted a brief sketch of the provision within Victoria’s secondary schools for those youngsters who wished to study drama or to practice theatre.

Outside the school system – for those whose schools do not make adequate provision or for others who wish to take things further – there are a number of options. A variety of organisations offer a range of drama, acting and performance classes, some of them so doing through a range of outlets such as leisure or recreation centres as well as from their own premises.

The best known and regarded of these are probably Kaleidoscope Theatre and the Kate Rubin Studio. Though each has its own particular USP they aim broadly at the same constituency, offering theatrical activities across a wide range of age groups but also focusing on those with ambitions to take up one the thespian professions. Both are themselves professional operations and are well resourced.

Kate Rubin herself was – for a considerable time – also involved with another admirable offering for the young of Greater Victoria… the Belfry 101 programme. I have waxed lyrical about the Belfry Theatre on more than one occasion. Apart from providing the best theatre-going experience in Victoria the Belfry also hosts this imaginative program for school-aged youngsters on an annual  basis. This is based around the Belfry’s main house programme, and gives the young members access to the casts and creatives involved in each show, in addition to offering them the opportunity to create their own showcase work at the end of the season.

The Belfry 101 programme was created in the late 1990s by University of Victoria Associate Professor Monica Prendergast, and has operated to great acclaim ever since. Both Monica Prendergast and Kate Rubin were kind enough to agree to meet us so that we could pick their respective brains concerning youth drama provision in Victoria. We are most grateful both to them and to Colin Plant, who heads the Fine Arts programme at Claremont Secondary School.

Now that I have provided the broadest of sketches of the youth drama provision at this end of Vancouver Island and in the process, hopefully, given the gentle reader an idea as to what is available – it is now time to offer an opinion as to what is not…!

And, yes! – that means another post…

“But a city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.”

Patrick Geddes

It was some time ago now – back in February in fact – that I posted a missive to this journal entitled Youth Theatre Dreaming in which I declared my intention of starting something along the lines of a youth theatre here in Victoria. You may have been wondering what has become of that purpose, particularly given that I wrote at the time that “things have been set in motion”.

Though I feel it probable that the gentle reader has grown somewhat weary over the years of being informed just how long it takes for this, that and the other to come to pass in our lives (which dilatory state of affairs seems to have been our lot for some considerable time now) in this case things actually have been happening… albeit – slowly!

In keeping with the ponderous nature of the progress this will not be the post that gives you all the details of the project. That will be the next one (or maybe the one after that!). This one will give some essential background and reflects the fact that one of the things that we were briefed to do by those with whom we intend to work was to carry out some research into the current dramatic provision for young people in and around Greater Victoria.

This is what we found.

Across the high schools of Greater Victoria the provision of drama teaching is – to put it mildly – mixed! Some schools have extensive offerings – such as the excellent Claremont Secondary in Cordova Bay which has a fully fledged Fine Arts programme running across the whole school. In other secondary schools drama is taught by whoever can be prevailed upon to pick it up – often someone from the English department. The content is then based upon whatever knowledge happens to be available. There is no common curriculum and drama would seem to be one of those subjects the timetabling of which has, of late, been squeezed.

One thing is, however, common to practically all schools – music theatre! I have never encountered such a plethora of music theatre courses and musical shows. It would seem that, even if no other offering for drama study is available, there is always the music theatre option.

Now – having written a number of musicals myself back in my youth theatre days I am not opposed to the form per se, but I was startled to discover that these shows are a very different proposition. These are based on hit shows from Broadway and the like, but stripped down for school use and with the entire production offered as a package – pre-recorded music, choreography, costume and set design and so forth.

Hmmm!

Outside school there are – as one would expect – other possibilities. Full details on these must, however, needs wait for the second part of this missive.