Arts Beat's peformances

Present.
Rehearsals for Twelfth Night at Tara Studio started about three weeks ago. They are often run two days a week for two to five hours accordingly. And as always, it is important to make use of every rehearsal because the performances keep getting longer.

Brief History.
Arts Beat started about a year ago, and the very first performance was Romeo and Juliet, which lasted about six minutes. Of course, the young members, or actors, were not as confident with not just themselves, but mainly with the text. As you know, Shakespeare was or is one of the greatest poets that ever lived and so the language with which he uses in his plays is often considered 'old' as interestingly put by one of the young members of the group.

However, the short performance of Romeo and Juliet was a success and it made the young actors more confident. They embraced Shakespeare, and began to look at it as not just another 'old' piece of text, but instead, as something they could try and put into their own untimely imagination.

Summer 2008.
With much more confidence now, the young actors were placed on the set of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But with much more excitement and less roles, the young actors approached this play with understanding as they began to realise how fun and interesting Shakespeare can actually be. All they need is more time, specific roles and know exactly what they are doing, but much importantly, understand what they are saying. And after an eleventh hour mad dash with one of the players (young actors of course) being unable to make the final show, they managed to pull off a 15 minute performance.

Winter 2008.
Now it was time to shine. Time to put the skills they had picked up over the last performances to create a much longer play of about 40 minutes and at the same time try to keep it simple. The play was Macbeth, and the players seemed to be at ease in their environment. A particular player, Sarah who played Lady Macbeth, gave a very beautiful performance and you could see how she has matured into being an actor. Other players, like the witches, also shone in this light, even scaring some of the audience members.
And by the end of this, with ticket sales going up and audiences wanting more of these brilliant performers, it was decided that the next performance would run for two nights and for an even longer time.

Winter 2009.
It is after Christmas and it is time for Twelfth Night. A wonderfully written comedy with so many characters and a lot to play with. New members have joined the old players and there seems to be a bigger atmosphere surrounding this play and all it's members. As compared to only six days of rehearsal, we have now moved onto nine days or whenever there is a chance to rehearse. The players know that there is so much to do, not just in rehearsals, but there is a need for commitment and understanding of how the idea of performance works.

So, with the weather threatening our rehearsal time, I have to admit, that I am still confident we can pull it off. Some of the old players actually realise now that this is something that they really enjoy and one of them even asked if they could meet up outside Tara studio with others to practice their scenes. Now that shows just how far they have all come and are willing to take Arts Beat to the next level, which I believe they already have.