Lesson Plans

Play for performance: The Gut Girls

Each issue of D&T we bring you a page-to-stage focus on a play for performance with your students. This issue, Paul Willcocks, now Drama teacher at Ilford County High School for Boys, recounts how at his last school this gritty play by Sarah Daniels turned into his most ‘genuine’ school production yet
 
The cast of The Gut Girls at SSSO
The cast of The Gut Girls at SSSO

When I was a drama teacher at SSSO (St Saviour's and St Olave's Girl's School) and having directed countless musicals in its vast school hall, I found myself looking for a more intimate play to be performed in our smaller drama studio, which could highlight the ensemble nature of our students’ work.

I felt that, quite often, the girls were tending to associate school plays with all things ‘glitzy’ and I wanted to show that drama could be just as powerful without loud music, glittering costumes and a reliance on a couple of star performers. I wanted to present a play with a solid team of actors who were portraying, in an equal way, a believable group of rather gritty characters.

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