The Wizard Of Oz

(A magical farewell to our Auditorum)

We turned the Auditorium into the magical mind of iconic character, Dorothy Gale, for our very own Nexus interpretation of the well loved family favourite musical, The Wizard of Oz. And, the talented young cast, crew, musicians and dedicated production team pulled off a wonderful coup de theatre which left at least one audience member speechless!

Other feedback on the show included the following: “I wanted to say how impressed we were with The Wizard of Oz performance. The learners showed real talent, commitment and hard work. But more than that, the choreography and blocking in particular were so creative and clever. The concept was engaging and quirky and the performances really drew you in. An absolute credit to all staff and learners who worked on it!”

As Nexus moves to its stunning purpose built performance spaces at our new school, we wanted to pull off a theatrical swansong in the awkward performance space that has, over the years, been home to some mould-breaking shows produced by both the Primary and Secondary teams and their respective learners. Indeed, for the first time, Secondary performers joined forces with Primary children in order to bring the show to audiences across three evenings. The cast was drawn from children in Years 5 and 6 as well as older learners, including performance veteran, Year 11 student, Cerys Byrne - she performed in Oliver!, Little Shop of Horrors and was a star turn last year as the Mock Turtle in the promenade performance of Laura Wade’s, Alice. Amazingly, the cast of principals including; Dorothy 1, 2 and 3, Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, were aged between 11 and 13 years of age. They did such an impressive job bringing their characters to life. But, let’s be honest, it was the cast of the Munchkins in their tie-dyed tops who stole the show!

The Auditorium has not been the easiest of spaces to work in; however, they do say that necessity is the mother of invention and this year we took a highly innovative approach to the staging of the show. I would like to thank the indefatigable facilities team, led by Jangsher Khan, for their commitment to turning ideas into reality - it is amazing what they did with some plywood, white tarpaulin and mosquito gauze. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to the many collaborators for their energy and creativity in bringing the vision so vividly to life and for working with our interpretation of the story the girl from Kansas.

We are thrilled audiences loved the show as much as we loved bringing it to them.

Jenny Burgess (burgess.j@nexus.edu.sg)

Subject Leader Drama

Year 2 playwrights see their fables come to life!

On Thursday, the Year 2 learners spent an entertaining morning with the Evolve Arts Theatre Group who performed 4 short plays based on stories written by each of the Year 2 classes. This was a wonderful opportunity for the learners to experience a different aspect of theatre after their recent success performing “The Fairest of Them All” to support their “Creativity Entertains Our Senses” UOI. After the performance, the children had the opportunity to meet with the directors of Evolve to ask questions about how the script was devised, character development and set design; an informing and inspiring experience for our budding thespians!