About the process

The challenges of continued remote learning in 2021 meant that the Year 11 Theate Studies class were unable to stage a short play at the end of Unit 2. Instead, the class worked with a professional sound designer to produce a radio play.

This provided an exciting opportunity for the students to engage throughout the creative process with a working industry professional. There were many fruitful production meetings where meaning and sound design concepts were unpacked together.

About the play

The Cave, by Tim Kelly, is a one-act play that was written as something of an experiment; if the performers onstage fully commit to the creation of a reality, what will the audience believe?

This play gave the students the opportunity to explore some more challenging and abstract styles of modern theatre, including Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. They worked as a production team to set aims for the experience they wanted the audience to have. One of these aims was inspired bt Theatre of the Absurd; to suggest that there is no 'correct' meaning to this plany, and to invite the audience to create and/or question their own meanings as they listen. For this reason, this short radio play is worth listening to more than once!

Obviously a radio play relies completely on the use of vocal skills to convey character. However, the class experimented with how use of movement and gesture in turn impacted or enhanced their ability to manipulate their voices to play their role.

Students also took on design roles, creating detailed concepts and renders for the imagined set, props, costumes and make up that this show would have implemented had we been able to stage it. This was valuable practice for their upcoming full production in Year 12! You can see some of their documented creative development below.

LIGHITNG DESIGN RESEARCH AND EXPLORATIONS by Holly Spencer