Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - Senior School Production 2023
Performing Arts at Cransley is owned by our young actors.
ISA Awards 2022 Finalist for Excellence and Innovation in Performing Arts
At Cransley, Drama is not just for those few extravert, specialist stage animals who already ‘can’. Drama is for every pupil.
There is not a single child in the entire school who has not given of themselves in performance. This is our mission as a School with inclusivity at its heart. Indeed it always has been.
This cannot be achieved without Drama being given the freedom and flexibility, the investment and innovation to adapt around the creative needs of our pupils and their dedicated teachers.
So, let's start with the hard cash. Our Headteacher and Governing Board take delight in the subject - over £125,000 invested wisely in a complete renovation of our stage - from board to drape, from a panoramic cyclorama to bespoke lighting and sound systems, and refit of our Drama Studio annex. A true stage, both literally and metaphorically, on which to showcase our pupils.
For an exceptionally small school of 250 pupils to make such a substantial investment of money and resources hard-earned, especially during the economic fragility of a pandemic, takes heart and soul, hope and aspiration.
“As our children move up through school, we push past the boundaries of what is expected from ‘school performances’, and challenge ourselves in our choices.
What better way to teach children about performing arts than to empower them to perform and give them experience of a wealth of different genres?
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‘Walking Pages’
Not to be outdone, Year 8 have collaborated and devised their own piece of theatre this year, creating ‘Walking Pages’, another unique immersive promenade performance. An atmospheric introductory film (recorded and edited by two talented Year 8 students) set the scene and mission for the audience - to help the ‘world’s author’, a Ghostwriter, regain control of his many characters. Then followed the live action, with four staggered-start, concurrently running performances allowing spectators personal and unique interactions with almost 30 famous literary characters as they travelled through the rooms and corridors of our school building, in scenes written by our students.
The interactive element made each show unique, developing in our young actors' resilience, improvisation and communication skills, showing them just what a true performance team can achieve when trusted with ownership and responsibility.
Breadth of ability and talent
We aim for - and achieve - breadth in understanding and ability across all areas of Performing Arts. Actors design and create their own costumes, are responsible for their own props and staging, operate their own music and lighting, set and strike their own show, with further opportunity to enhance these skills in Stagecraft Club and Theatre Tech Club. B-tec students support lower school performances with their expertise and passion, as makeup artists for the vibrant junior school production of Babouska earlier this year, or operating the new lighting rig and radio mics.
“Our children are theatre makers, ‘let in’ to all aspects of creating performances, and therefore are learning broadly across all technical, design and production areas.
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Our students are carefully guided to explore and develop their own personalities through their characters - they are given choice rather than casting decisions made entirely for them, and, with gentle but firm encouragement, empowered to push their own boundaries and embrace and pursue individuality through their drama.
We are a small school, and it is essential to us that every single individual pupil benefits and grows through Drama and the Performing Arts and our school values could not be better demonstrated than within these subjects. We seek and find excellence in and through our Drama. We nurture relationships through our Drama. And we are ambitious and venture beyond, taking our drama students - which are all of our students - on that empowering journey with us.
“We encourage in our students an inquisitive and open mind, an active engagement; where they know theatrical performance is not a closed book of lessons to be learned, but full of open possibilities and exciting opportunities just waiting to be exploited and explored.”