Our student showcase gave the West End on Demand Project Week group—led by Upper School science teachers Jonty Faulkner and Julie Plewa—the perfect way to cap off our week in London.
Throughout the week, we participated in two or three workshops a day, receiving acting, singing, and dancing lessons from real West End theatre professionals. Our workshops included learning the actual choreography from the West End productions of “Matilda,” “Back to the Future,” and “Mamma Mia,” as well as acting out scenes from “The Play That Goes Wrong” and “Mamma Mia.” Additionally, we received singing lessons from Lily De-La-Haye, a current swing in the cast of “Les Misérables,” and Christie Valeriano, a West End singing coach.
On Friday, each student performed a two-minute monologue, dance, or song to show the progress they had made during their time in the West End.
“I loved performing my showcase,” junior Meredith Maechling said. “I did a dance I made up last year in my Just Dance class, so it felt really good to perform it a year later and apply all of the things we learned from our workshops this week to an old piece.”
After each of our performances, students received feedback from Cory English, the actor who plays Doc in the West End production of “Back to the Future.” The feedback sessions proved especially meaningful because we had actually gotten to see Cory perform in “Back to the Future” earlier in the week.
“It was amazing to hear from a real West End professional,” sophomore Teddy Rinder said. “[Mr. English] made us do our showcases over and over to apply his feedback, but it was rewarding in the end to see how much better we all were.”
