Loreto drama students were tasked with creating a devised drama piece in a theatrical style of their choosing for their DRAM 4 practical exam. There were eleven devised drama pieces performed over three nights to large audiences in the Ellis and Kennedy theatre. The performances were a culmination of 9 weeks of research, planning, experimentation and rehearsal.

Creating original drama from scratch is both a daunting and exciting process; it requires an enormous amount of hard work and risk taking. It also requires the performers to have the advanced ability to be sift through all created work, and establish what is worth keeping and what needs to be discarded.

Discarding material can be a difficult thing to do, but often the best of ideas can emerge from this refinement. The quality of the work this year was high and used wide ranging styles from absurdism and farcical comedy, to storytelling and physical theatre. Each piece with clear dramatic intentions carefully crafted to communicate the students’ imaginative ideas to their audience. Some focused on thought provoking topical issues such as the refugee crisis and mental health issues. Others chose more lighthearted topics, but all students have successfully created a piece of theatre that informs, entertains and challenges.

One student said “i’m so proud of our piece, there were times when we weren’t certain that everything would fall into place, but we had good guidance and support from teachers and we were really happy with it” another student said: “Seeing everyone’s pieces change and develop and then watching them in their final exams was my favourite part of the second year of the course” This final cohort, devising for the outgoing specification should be rightly proud of the work that yhey have created.