Outstanding Performances at Spring Term Spotlight Showcase

It was another wonderful evening for our ‘Spotlighters’ – this term’s members of Kings’ performance development programme, with a terrific turn out from family and friends as well as prospective auditionees and their parents at their showcase event on Tuesday.

Spotlight is a development opportunity for pupils aspiring to or looking to consolidate their skills as principals and/or students aiming to expand and strengthen their repertoire ahead of external auditions, with a showcase performance happening at the end of each term.

A strong group emerged from this term’s auditions and we were able to challenge them with multiple pieces to develop through workshop and masterclass style sessions.

They opened with a Shakespeare ensemble, with Henry F taking the title role in an excerpt from the first scene of King Lear. He perfectly captured Lear’s capricious turn from poised majesty to venom-spitting petulance.

Grace A’s measured performance reflected Kent’s attempts to placate his master and restore equilibrium whilst Amelia W and Georgia L simpered and sneered to great effect as Goneril and Regan respectively.

As the focal point for Lear’s wrath, Elodie-Eve H played Cordelia with an endearing innocence and the tension in the Studio was palpable as Henry really ‘let rip’ at Lear’s youngest daughter’s perceived shortcomings!

Elodie then lightened the mood with a terrific rendition of Mack the Knife, part of a linked trio of musical theatre numbers all composed by the legendary Kurt Weill. Whilst Mack the Knife is best known as a jazz standard, recorded down the years by greats such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, but it’s also the opening number to The Threepenny Opera which Weill wrote with renowned political playwright, Bertolt Brecht.

Later in the evening, Amelia treated us to another Threepenny number, Pirate Jenny. Showing superb storytelling skills, Amelia created a chilling atmosphere as her character, Polly, tells the cautionary tale of an abused and misused chambermaid who gets her deadly revenge on inconsiderate customers!

The third Weill number was My Ship from Lady in the Dark, a dreamy reflection on the value of love over materialism, sung with heartfelt sweetness by Georgia.

With their classical repertoire explored as an ensemble, they had a chance to work on contemporary monologues as well. The eclectic mix was highly entertaining.

Georgia’s Mrs Twit was as convincingly repulsive (and funny) as Enda Walsh intended in his stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Twits, whilst Amelia was heartbreakingly introspective as Fleabag from the original stage version of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s bittersweet comedy-drama.

Grace gave us a wonderfully witty insight into the mind of a woman scorned as Hilary from The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband, whose husband, Kenneth, has just traded her in for the stereotypical younger model. Elodie, meanwhile, captured all of Alan Aykbourn’s playfulness as Lucy from Invisible Friends, introducing us to the imaginary Zara with total belief and commitment.

It was left to Henry to round off the evening, playing the ‘Old Man’, one of the many eccentric characters who frequent the pub at the heart of Jim Cartwright’s Two. You could have heard a pin drop as Henry poignantly performed the role of a widower, comforted and totally at peace with his daily spiritual commune with his beloved departed wife.

It was an evening of outstanding talent and we look forward to what the Summer Term’s auditionees will bring to the table and the showcase we will craft for their performance in June.

For more information on our Spotlight programme, see our Firefly page – Spotlight — The King’s School, Worcester (fireflycloud.net)