Sing a Song of Resistance & Watch Me Soar

Our first and second-year musical theatre students ended their first semester with two live performances, streamed to an international digital audience. Students celebrated the creative and practical work they have done this term with Sing A Song Of Resistance and Watch Me Soar. 

Our students have worked with tutors and award-winning theatre professionals to showcase their work, streamed live from the amazing facilities here at the Performance Hub.  

Sing a Song of Resistance 

In Sing a Song of Resistance the first-year students collaborated with award winning Welsh director Angharad Lee and musical theatre tutors Mitch Holland and Beth Birchall. Angharad really enjoyed working with the students on this new musical theatre module, saying:   

‘It's always lovely working with students who are at the beginning of their training journey. Throwing a whole new toolkit of skills at them in the hope a few will land is always a challenge. It was a joy to see everyone embrace and work through new techniques and skills with open arms, not afraid to ask questions and challenge, and seeing real breakthrough moments throughout the module.’ 

Sing A Song of Resistance included the work of leading contemporary musical theatre writers including Georgia Stitt, Masi Asare and Amir Shoenfeld. The musical theatre programme is committed to showcasing the work of historically marginalised practitioners, in particular women identifying composers and writers, and People of Colour.    

Sing A Song Of Resistance was the debut performance from the first-year students, allowing them to put the skills and techniques in acting, singing and dance that they have developed this semester into practice. First year student Maddie found the experience very positive: “it was lovely to perform in a theatre again and use the skills we’ve worked on this semester. It was also nice to see how far we had come as an ensemble from beginning to end.”  Second year student Rosalyn agreed, saying that 'this module opened my eyes to the challenges and opportunities of creating musical theatre performances'. 

Watch Me Soar 

The second-year musical theatre students have spent the term working on their audition repertoire folders and workshopping material to get it to an audition- ready industry standard.  Alongside musical theatre tutors Clare Chandler and Mitch Holland the students worked with musical theatre actor and director Esme Sears, and producer and director Matt Powell (Fresh from their West End debut as assistant director on Public Domain).   

In Watch Me Soar the students presented a selection of musical theatre repertoire as part of a cabaret celebrating their achievements this semester. Due to the pandemic this was the first time the students have had an opportunity to perform for a live audience in our wonderful Black Box theatre. Back in their first year they streamed extracts from Willy Mukendi and Joseph Purdue’s Catfish the Musical. Second year student Tom said, ‘we were so lucky to get to perform last year but it's been amazing to be back in the theatre in front of live audiences.’ 

Katie, a second-year student, said that working with Matt had been invaluable, and that it had really encouraged her to get ‘out of my comfort zone’, helping her to try new things and develop her skills and techniques.   

Director Esme really enjoyed working with the students; ‘it was exciting to see them grow through the process and embrace new techniques and approaches. I was very impressed with the quality of the students and the standard of the work they were able to produce, and I look forward to watching them continue to grow as they apply themselves through the remainder of their studies.’