Hello and welcome to Beaconverse, The Beacon School monthly podcast where we endeavour to inspire you with educational topics as well as giving you insight into Beacon life. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoy. We’ve had a little break, but Beaconverse is back. Today we’re joined by two very special guests to chat all things drama and dance. What’s been happening at The Beacon and what’s coming up? To kick things off, would you both like to introduce yourselves?
Yeah, sure. Um so I am Zenelle Oosthuizen
and I am the Head of Drama at The Beacon School.
And I’m Manley Gavich and I’m a Performing Arts Teacher as well.
Welcome. You’re welcome both of you. Thank you for joining us today. There’s certainly lots coming up in the Performing arts department at the moment, keeping you both very busy. One of the hottest topics is our upcoming staff panto, Robin Hood. For anyone who hasn’t heard about it yet, can you tell us a little bit more about the production and what the audience can expect, Manley?
Yeah, Robin Hood. First, what a privilege it is to be at a school that supports the Performing Arts and the staff in this way, allowing us to put on these really wonderful big-scale productions. And I think that really for me is what the difference of The Beacon is you see Performing Arts being reduced at many other schools, but at The Beacon, it’s just getting bigger and bigger. And this time around, the staff are getting on stage and kind of uh being put into that side of things for the first time, which is really, really rewarding and exciting. This has been an absolute joy. I feel it’s boosted a real sense of unity and collaboration across all departments in the school. We have Upper School teachers, Lower School teachers, TAs, admin staff. I think someone from every department is really represented on stage in the show, which is just such a pleasure. And there’s so many hidden talents in our staff body as well, uh, which is incredible. I for some people that don’t know, we do have a lot of teachers at this school, even outside of the Performing Arts department, that have backgrounds in Performing professionally. Um, Mr. Winter actually went to the same drama school I did, which is really exciting. Um so it’s wonderful to be on stage with him. Mr. Mitcham as well has some professional experience, but then we also have a large amount of the staff body that are discovering new skills, um, which is just such a pleasure to be part of. I absolutely adore that.
And Mrs. Phipps was a actor, wasn’t she? Yeah, as well as Mrs. Phipps.
Then we have Mrs Howard takes tap dance lessons and loves to dance. I can see that. I know, and it’s absolutely incredible the amount of um just talent that’s that’s truly hidden at The Beacon that you you put on a show and you realize that so many people have these little just gems of of Performing skills.
Um yeah, you were getting age.
New girl girl band. So yeah, we call it Robin Hood, but obviously um it’s our own bespoke Robin Hood, thanks to you, who um I understand wrote the whole script.
Yes, yeah. So I previous to teaching um worked as a playwright and a script mentor, and I absolutely adore writing adaptations and writing new versions of stories. Um so it’s been just such a privilege for me to take the time over the summer to create this bespoke panto of Robin Hood that really does cater toward the humour of the staff body and the humour of our community. So it really is a show for us.
Yeah. Great. Well, I can’t wait to watch it. I know rehearsals for Matilda Jr. are also underway. Can you tell us a little bit about how preparations are going, particularly the collaboration between year groups and getting everything ready for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
Yeah, so we’re really excited about this one. Um, this is the first time that we’ve done a show which kind of incorporates three big year groups, and uh we’ve got year six, seven, and eight involved in this, and we’re sort of treating it like two separate shows. So the school show um will involve every member of years six, seven, and eight, um, and then we will be taking a select group of I think it’s 23 children up to the Edinburgh fringe. So it’s been a little bit of a logistical um one trying to figure out how that’s all going to work, but effectively we’ve got two large ensembles and a sort of um a lead group who will be forming our Edinburgh crew. Um, and the way that it’s going to work is that each ensemble will basically have three shows each when we do it at school, um, and the leads will then go on to Edinburgh, um, have their own rehearsal week and then carry on to the Edinburgh fringe. So obviously, with double the amount of kids, it kind of doubles our opportunity. We have been utilising rehearsals to kind of find out and tailor what skills we have within the cast so that we can kind of bring out a little bit more of what not only the students want to do, but what sort of again hidden talents they might have that you only really get to figure out when you’re doing a rehearsal in the rehearsal process with them. Um so yeah, we’re really excited for that. The school show is next June, and I don’t think we’ve released the dates for these yet, but they are going to be just before the residential week, and then we have a rehearsal week after residentials for the Edinburgh cast to kind of get ready and get excited about their next challenge.
We aim to take a show, don’t we, to Edinburgh Festival Fringe every two years. What would you say is the best part in taking a show to Edinburgh? What do you enjoy most about it and what do the children enjoy most?
So this will be, I think, the third or the fourth time that I’ve done a show up in Edinburgh, and for me, every single time I’ve been, it’s been different. I think the best bit for me is the fact that you can do as much preparation and planning and you know, speaking to the students and the parents about what it’s going to be like, but the actual experience of it and the being there is like nothing that you could ever describe in words. The festival experience, the fact that you are just surrounded by creativity, um, the fact that the kids get to experience um not just theatre but music, art, um, and all these different kinds of creative things on a world stage is something that you know we get feedback from from parents every time we go saying it was a life-changing experience. Um and I think and I think some you know some professional actors don’t get to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. So we’re really lucky that once again the school allow us to do this every second year and that we keep continuing to go because it puts us on the map. You know, every time I speak to any other school, they say, Oh, I can’t believe that you you’re a prep school and that you go up to the Edinburgh Fringe. You know, they don’t do it until they get to sixth form. So we’re really we’re really lucky.
And there are some good reviews on Sister Act as well. It was a sell-out show, wasn’t it, for five days?
Yeah, I think I think all the shows that we’ve taken up so far have been sell-out shows. And what’s nice about that is that obviously we get a good community following who helped to to kind of bolster those seats, but the flyering on the royal mile every day helps to kind of draw a bit of a buzz. Um, and and the rest of those seats are sold every day just from us marketing on the Royal Mile.
So I saw the Sister Act nuns passing out fliers on the Instagram.
We always get a lot of attention from our costumes.
The majority of shows are run by adults as well, so it’s probably something that you know that’s quite a draw having children Performing.
Definitely. Yeah, the experience of going to Edinburgh is is an aspiration for professional actors. Um, I didn’t have the privilege of going to Edinburgh until well into my adult years working professionally. So it is it is such a privilege and a blessing that um that our students at at their age are able to go and participate in something that a lot of people from around the world spend years hoping to get to go to. Exactly that.
Year 4 have their own production coming up in the spring term. Can you tell us a bit about Madagascar?
Yes, Madagascar Kids is it is an adaptation of Madagascar the animated film, which is one of my favorite films. It came out in cinemas when I was like just the right age for it. That it was very targeted toward um my demographic, and I loved I loved the film as a child, and so it’s it’s such a joy getting to sort of share this with the kids now, but apparently it’s just as popular I’ve discovered. Every kid knows it. I think the song I like to move it. Yeah, I love it. Absolutely, yeah. We’ve really leaned into that. This year four group is so energetic. They are extremely athletic, they are incredible dancers, they they bring a lot of energy everywhere that they go. And so we’ve chosen the show to really lean into what they bring to the stage. And so we’re doing things a bit differently, uh, where everyone sort of knows the show to be the animals from New York City being sent to Madagascar and learning how to survive there. We’re sort of putting it on its head, bringing in a bit of that like early 2000s fun culture. So we’re really leaning into the pop music, really leaning into like the good dance music elements of the show, um, and kind of teaching the kids all about that, getting to use their fun energy on stage is really rewarding.
And it’s I guess Year Four’s first big production on stage.
Yes. So yeah, we the kids at Beacon start Performing right from Reception. However, this is their first fully realized production where there are lights, there are costumes, there are sets, um, everything that you would expect to see uh going into town and seeing a proper show. Uh, we start right at year four with them, which is again an absolute blessing. Can’t wait to see that as well.
So moving on to dance. We know that the introduction of dance has been a big hit in the school, and your new dance club has been particularly popular among boys and girls. Can you tell us a bit more about it? Yeah, the Dance club, I am just so proud of the students that have already kind of taken the leap off the diving board into dance. Um, dance sort of was just introduced to The Beacon midway through last year. I had a couple of upper school students who came to me. They were really curious about dance, really curious about dance moves. They wanted to learn how to basically they want to learn how to turn forever. They wanted to stand on one foot and turn forever and ever and ever because they saw some videos of that happening in Swan Lake. they in one of their classes, they were, they saw a video of a ballet dancer and they said, Mr. Gavich, how do you do that? Is it is it possible? And sort of as a joke, I started to teach them and I realized that they want it. There’s this real drive for, I think The Beacon School’s history of being a boys’ school, we really have this quite athletic, quite competitive nature among our students that actually pairs perfectly with dance. Because dance is all about self-discipline. It’s about learning to say to yourself, I’m expressing myself, I’m bringing my creative energy into a contained and focused discipline. Um I’m just so proud of all of the students that have stepped into that role in a really big way. Um, it is the highlight of my week to see the students run in, throw their shoes off, and start warming up. It’s absolutely incredible. The club has given themselves the nickname The Beacon Swans, which is a uh it’s a reference to Swan Lake, the ballet, of course, but also just a reference of swans being this creature that looks so elegant on the water, but it actually takes a lot of muscle and skill and coordination kicking under the water to get what they achieve. And so I love the nickname The Beacon Swans. And it has really just brought up our production value across the board, where in productions, Year Four, year six, seven, eight, we start to see more advanced dancing taking place. We’re no longer cutting out dance breaks, we’re taking on the two and a half minute dance break in the middle of a song. Last year with Aladdin Jr., we added tap dancing to the show for the first time as well, which was just a huge privilege for me to be able to share those skills with the students, but also for the students at this age to realize that they can do it. They can put their mind to something like ballet or tap dancing or hip hop or street or jazz, and they actually can really achieve something incredible. So we have some things on the horizon. I don’t want to say too much, it’s still a bit of a surprise, but we are um premiering dance in a really big way uh this this Summer Term. Oh, how exciting! And moving on to Christmas, my favourite time of the year. How are preparations for the Nativity and Christmas showcase going?
So we have we’re actually a member down in the Performing Arts department this year. So we are taking on all these incredible things with only three members of staff. And I’m glad you’ve asked about Christmas because this year we’ve decided to take our nativities for our younger members of uh The Beacon community in a slightly different direction, and we’ve gone for um a Russian tale called Babushka, and we’re really excited. I have not been uh I’m not directing this one, but I have been very privileged to sit in the Performing Arts office and listen to the incredible music coming from the music office. It’s just a really nice, um, sort of different uh something, something that kind of take us on a little bit more of a journey around Christmas time, um, but also give us that sort of special magic that we all enjoy. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, Babushka, it’s a really lovely nativity play, but it really leans into Slavic art and Slavic culture as well. So on top of the typical, you know, wonderful Christmas singing and joy that comes out of a nativity, um, they’re also having lessons, um, they’re reading books and having lessons on other cultures and other languages on top of this. And this is starting right at year four and five, um, or age four and five, rather, sorry. So it’s it’s incredible that we’re able to bring those little extra bits into um what would normally be a quite typical nativity play. Our Reception age as well, they’re doing a separate play called the The Little Blue Star, which is sort of the nativity story told from the perspective of the stars in the galaxy. And so we have the Star of Bethlehem kind of taking this little blue star under his wing and showing him the magic of Christmas. Just it’s just it’s so adorable. It’s adorable. They all look like they love it.
So finally, looking ahead, what are you both most excited about for the rest of the academic year?
Having a long lie down. No, I think , I mean, we’ve sort of we’ve sort of given you a bit of a snapshot of what the year looks like, and we’re really excited for all the shows and for all the the extra added bits. I think for me, what I’m starting to see emerge, which I’m really excited about, is the the sort of um incorporation of boys and girls into other areas of the production. So for example, we’ve been running some drama holiday camps which have actually taken the focus away from stage acting and given students the opportunity to work backstage on roles like being a stage manager or roles like lighting designer or sound designer or even special effects. And what we found is that there are a quite a core group of students who are not only really interested in that um but really good at it. So for me, um looking ahead to this year and also future, it’s going to be to sort of incorporate a bit of a backstage team into our productions. Um not necessarily just utilizing the older students, but kind of working like we have with dance from the ground up, so that kids who are not necessarily um main focus being standing in the spotlight and singing that kind of solo number, that there is a space for everyone and that we are kind of being inclusive about what we can offer to the students at The Beacon.
Oh, that’s great. I know that you know the upper school last year got involved quite a bit backstage, lighting, technical and marketing. Marketing, TikTok team, yeah, the TikTok team, definitely. And they were really enthusiastic. So it’s yeah, it’s definitely lovely.
Yeah, it’s it’s lovely to show all the aspects of what Performing Arts can be, that it isn’t just actors who like to sing all the time, that when you go to a theater, it takes marketing, it takes box office, it takes logistics and scheduling and stage management and all of these things. And I think it’s it’s really vital to show students that you know nothing is one thing. There’s always a whole team of people that work together, just like we do at the school. And it’s lovely to let them kind of take that on in a mini-controlled environment. So yeah, we have a wonderful tech team. We’ve incorporated as well dance captains last year. So we have sort of teachers, liaison teachers among the student body. And it’s just really created this incredible sense of unity among the students as well.
Well, thank you so much for your time today. It’s been lovely hearing about everything that’s going on, and we can’t wait to see it all come together. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you. What an exciting year ahead. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Beaconverse. We’re available to listen to on a range of platforms, including Spotify and Google Play. We hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and we’ll catch you in next month’s new episode. Bye. Bye.
