BLOG: Sasha

24 January 2020 | Work Experience

Time flies when you’re having fun! Especially when you wish something would last longer, but it goes quicker instead. Anyway, for me Half Moon Theatre was one of these amazing experiences that just flies past. So if you want to know how to make time fly, here’s the instruction: if you haven’t already completed work experience – do it at Half Moon Theatre, or even come and volunteer.

Day 1

It’s a bit difficult to imagine at first. You wake up in the morning and it suddenly strikes you that you are going to work, NOT TO SCHOOL BUT TO WORK. It’s a bit nerve wracking at first because you are going completely out of your comfort zone, with new people and new surroundings. So an hour later, when I was standing at the door of this huge and white building, I’ll tell you honestly I wasn’t exactly excited to come in. However, as soon as you are inside, you are instantly comforted by the amazing staff. The atmosphere was extremely welcoming, and once you come in you never want to come out.
After filling in a couple of forms, I had a tour around the building. I have to confess, as soon as I saw these underground tunnels, (Don’t worry there’s not actually any tunnels, they just look like that) I kind of got freaked out that I might get lost. However, when I entered the costume and resources rooms, I thought that it was extremely cool that the theatre has so many colourful costumes and props, that young people can use and look at!

After the tour, I was asked to read through and type up some evaluation forms that were completed by the young people that attend sessions Half Moon run. I have to say Half Moon was extremely successful at getting all of the young people involved in acting activities, making friends and expressing their ideas. Lunch time came around. Yeah that’s it really nothing else to say about lunch. Maybe, because time didn’t fly during that hour instead it just dragged on.

After lunch, I was asked to photograph the gallery pictures from an exhibition called “Are you sure you want to move out?” I learned how to use a professional CAMERA!!!!! It was a bit difficult taking the photos because of the reflections, but it was extremely fun! I was then asked to join in with the Youth Theatre session of a group called Eclipse, which was a beautiful group of young, talented children! Despite their age, (8 – 11 years old) they contributed a lot of interesting ideas and listened to each other respectfully. Their acting and team work skills were very good and they managed to perform very confidently. The children learned about 1990s to celebrate Half Moon Young People’s Theatre’s 30th anniversary. (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BY THE WAY!) To summarize my first day at Half Moon was extremely fun and helpful for me to develop my communication, team work and acting skills!

Day 2

First thing’s first: blog. Every morning, I would sit down to write this for you. After, I had to use my photographs of the exhibition from day 1 to create a catalogue. That was actually quite fun because I got to copy and paste information and the photos to create a guide for anyone who wanted to buy something. Once I completed the catalogue, I had lunch and then I was asked to do some research on Online Safety. I think this is a very useful and important topic to research because we now have so much technology that people can take advantage of with negative intentions. It is therefore almost impossible to stay unaffected.

I learnt that Half Moon helps children and parents solve problems and understand things through drama (For example: “Dramatic Maths”). This means that they will be able to teach children how to stay safe online and help parents to maintain this safety. This would be very helpful for the safety and general wellbeing of the future generation.

After 25 minutes of research, I joined in with Equinox Youth Theatre. The children played lots of games to help them improve on their body language and team work skills. Throughout the session they stayed EXTREMELY FOCUSED and participated very well, with clear and imaginative ideas. They learned about the 1990s and the type of costumes and music at that time. Time flew again, of course, so before I got the chance to get tired, BOOM! the day was over.

Day 3

As soon as you come in, in the morning it’s blog time! Hurray! Anyway, straight after I had to create an evaluation document to combine all the teachers’ evaluation forms in one after the “Road Safety Workshops”. However, as soon as I started we had news that new books were coming in to the theatre’s bookshop, which meant that I had to sort out the old books and unpack the new ones. This was very fun, because I personally love books, but also the books that I was sorting were little children’s and baby’s books and they were just SOOOO CUTE!!!!! Also, I got to sort out the display in which the books stood to make them look very nice, for all the children and parents to see! Finally, after all that was done and dusted, I went to finish off the evaluation document.

Day 4

BLOG. So today, I have finished the evaluation document from Day 3 and then I went into CASTINGS!!!!!! I have to say I was super excited for that, because I feel like watching professional actors audition will give me a lot of useful experience for the future. It was very fun watching them perform the pieces that they prepared themselves because, they were so varying and emotional. It was also very funny to watch professional adult actors turning in to children, when they were asked to perform a dialogue from the play called “Dust” for which they were auditioning. The actors were then asked to perform to music with a puppet and that was very enjoyable to watch as well. Finally, after lunch, I was asked to design a large version of the contract for Solar, which is one of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre. To do this, I cut out all of the sentences for the contract, glued them onto a large piece of paper and then created some little drawings to match the sentences.

Day 5

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!! IT’S THE LAST DAY!!!!
This is just sad, why is it not 2 weeks?!
Anyway, after all my sulking and crying inside, I finally managed to get out of bed and get here half an hour early (as usual). After I did my blog, I joined in with Comets Youth Theatre, which was an absolute pleasure to be with. All the children were sooooo imaginative and so creative!!!!!!!!!!! It was an amazing experience to be able to work with such talented kids. After Comets was two other groups of the same age called Sunbeams and Moonbeams. Those kids were just as wonderful as the first group. All the kids were making up imaginative stories about the creation of Half Moon, again because of the 30th anniversary. Once again, one final time I promise, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HALFMOON!!!!!!!!! After I suddenly realised that the day was over!

And that was it. The week was over. If my whole life flies past like this week did, I will never get ANYTHING done!!! Anyway, as I said at the beginning time flies when you are having fun, so I guess I had lots of fun! I want to say thank you, to everyone at Half Moon Theatre for supporting me, being so kind and giving me very interesting tasks to do!!! This week has given me so many new experiences, lessons and skills! A week that I will never forget!

THANK YOU

Sasha came to us from Bishop Challoner Girls School (Tower Hamlets), 20th – 24th January 2020

Next article:

BLOG: Nathaniel

Previous article:

Team Half Moon runs the Big Half

Back to All Posts