Each year, the four houses of Woodford County High School (Repton, Warner, Highams and Newton) battle it out with a theatre production competition known as 'House Drama' - an age-old tradition allowing members of each house to come together as a team and perform a stage show inspired by well-known musicals. Each show is externally judged, and the winners are crowned the prestigious ‘House Drama Of The Year’.
The Repton house, whose motto is “To strive is to succeed”, based their production on the popular Disney musical 'Teen Beach Movie'. Their House Captain, Natalia Moks Rodrigues, gives a behind the scenes look at their show.
“Teen Beach Movie follows two teenagers, Mack and Brady, who, after being swept away by a large storm, find themselves in a film, ‘Wet Side Story’. Throughout the musical, the two try their best to escape the film and return home, however in doing so, they end up disrupting the outcome of the film and must make amends. As a team, we came up with a few suggestions, then voted for our favourite to base our stage show on. This musical was chosen as it seemed like a lot of fun to perform!” commented Natalia.
House members were given roles, from main cast members, to backstage and orchestra. Over the space of a month, the teams worked tirelessly, rehearsing and perfecting, before the big day on Tuesday 14th November, when each house treated the rest of the school to their shows.
Natalia described the energy and atmosphere on stage as “Amazing! Everyone was happy and smiling on stage. My favourite and most memorable part of the performance was the last song, Surfs Up, because it was really fun to perform together!”
Behind the smiling faces on stage, however, Natalia, opened up about some of the struggles faced by her and her team during the rehearsals. “It was difficult to find time to rehearse due to everyone’s busy schedules, and this was a challenge. Some of our actors were also involved in another school production, Medea, hosted by the Classics Department, so getting to the performance level required took longer than expected.”
Although Repton’s production was well-received by the school community, it failed to secure the top spot. “In hindsight” commented Natalia “We should have picked a more classic and well-known musical to base our production on – something which the judges were familiar with and had a connection to already. This, in my opinion, would have given us a better chance of winning.”
Despite not coming first, house members won in many other ways. They were able to develop their musical and theatre abilities, boost their confidence, form new friendships and keep a much-loved school tradition alive!
