Creating a Christmas Play with Live Theatre
We've been collaborating with Live Theatre and along with another school have helped to create a Christmas Play. Blitzen on the Tyne, showed from December 7th-December 22nd and told the heart-warming tale of kindness and Christmas festivities.
Helping to create Blitzen on the Tyne with Live Theatre
Learners from Northern Counties have had the privilege of helping to create Blitzen on the Tyne, a part of Live Theatre’s Wintery Tales. Students helped with various parts of the play before going to see their work come to life.
Members of Live Theatre’s production team came into the school to host various workshops, including the plays Director Becky. The first workshop focussed on plot where our students storyboarded potential endings for the play. They then attended a workshop on set design and then on music where they played various instruments and tested out recording equipment.
This was such a brilliant opportunity for our students to get to learn what goes into creating a theatre production, from seeing the planning and storyboarding necessary to seeing the equipment and set pieces that create the final product.
They then got to visit Live Theatre and see the finishing touches before the play premiered. There they watched a rehearsal, met characters Jackie the pigeon and Flake the worm. They even recorded some backing tracks for the play, hearing their voices being transformed into elves that will feature at the beginning of the play.
Lights, Camera, Action
Finally, on the 7th December they got to see their work come to life. Sitting in the front row, they had a wonderful time watching Blitzen on the Tyne, where Blitzen the reindeer travels to Newcastle to find the true magic of Christmas, gather enough of that magic and save the North Pole in time for Christmas. Whilst in Newcastle Blitzen encounters Jackie the pigeon and visits some key North East locations, including attending a NUFC game at St James Park (where Dan Burn gave a message specially for the play), Greggs, and travelling on the Metro. It was a heart-warming tale which told that the magic of Christmas comes in the form of kindness and hugs. One of our teachers, Mandy, even did the BSL interpretation for the play and the students loved watching her help make Christmas accessible to all.
The students had a fantastic time seeing their hard work come to life on the stage and look forward to collaborating with Live Theatre on next year’s Wintery Tales play. Thanks once more to Live Theatre for involving our students and staff in the production and giving us all this magnificent opportunity.