Welcome to wonderland...

 

Burntwood school has done it again with producing another phenomenal musical! Which I was lucky to be a part of playing the White Rabbit. You would have been fully emersed within the play as the set surrounded you with objects hanging from the ceiling to fake grass laid on the seating area. Everything was penalised down to the very last detail being perfected by director Mr Ross-Shields who did an astounding with the not only the success of the play but controlling and being inclusive to everyone in the cast which consisted of over 100 students ranging from main characters all the way to the backstage crew. 

 

When you are a part of such a massive cast it sometimes slips your mind how much you can mean to the production. It is like a food chain if the stage isn’t set by stage crew there is no foreground for the actors to explore their characters or for the dancers to mark their spaces. Everyone has to rely on one another and all the teachers made sure all students felt included and participated in their full potential; ensuring that everyone is feeling included is quite a hard job but working together as a community with the cast and teachers we were able to support those who had doubts in their potential and participation. Leading up to the performance nights it feels as if you are being bruised with the amount of dancing you are doing or that your brain cannot withhold any more sentences to learn.

 

But, all that is worth the pain when the thrill beginnings when you step on stage on the first night. The adrenaline hits you and everything you thought had slipped and flown away out your mind comes back to you and it’s as easy as breathing. Everyone has evolved during the run-up and we formed: friendships, a community, a family which we could rely on stage if we messed up a little or we could lean on backstage before having a breakdown.

 

Finally, being a part of something make you feel like you have a place in the world and I get that feeling by being on stage; performing beside my friends, in a school that I love, creating memories I could never forget and as I told my castmates” I would not trade this experience for the world”. What experiences and memories have you created while being apart of something?

Antonia Edgington