10 March 2011

Just come back from a great show of the new sexual harrassment play at Central School. I think we have a winner here. The teacher has asked us to come back to do each year group and we're following it up with a workshop.

We start the show with a quick agree /disagree as a 'marker' of audience opinion. Students are asked to go to an agree sign or a disagree sign regarding the statement 'Parents should not allow daughters the same freedoms they give to boys.' So far the whole audience crosses over with 100 percent of the girls disagreeing and 100 percent of boys agreeing.

It's a while since I've been into the schools and the differences are vast. One newish school was a boiling hot room, no fans, very low tin roof and a cement factory rattling on outside the window. The other schools although not palatial were more condusive to learning.Yet looking at the grades on the wall at the newer school, there were some who had done quite well. I couldn't last 5 minutes in the classroom I saw. We took the class outside for the show which meant that practically every other class seemed to spill out to watch the piece too.

Nearly ready to start this year's big play..about politics...good timing, what with a minister deciding it's OK to bash up newspaper owners. The town waits to see whether the PM or the police will do anything about it.

Half the cast still stuck on outer islands running workshops and showing our films in remote villages. One also injured her back when caught under a speed boat whilst pulling it to shore. Am planning to make some banana bread and buy some fruit and start the first day of rehearsal with a nice breakfast and read through! Hopefully that will lessen resentment about coming straight into work after 2 and half weeks away! But we have only 6 weeks to opening night.