15 Minute Shakespare 2010

This year our Community Drama Artist Kate Black was one of the judges for the annual Citizens Theatre Society 15 Minute Shakespeare competition. She blogged about her experience from the two days:

"As a first time judge I expected the judging to be a lot easier than it was. All the pieces performed over the two days were incredibly well performed.

We used the word ‘mature’ a lot when summing up because we couldn’t believe how well the performers understood the text they were delivering and how good the characterizations were in many of the pieces. St Roch’s ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ made me laugh so much, St Paul’s energy and chemistry as a group in Romeo and Juliet was impressive, the pace of Shawland’s Othello was so engaging with some of the acting really quite remarkable, the funky fairies of Govan High were brill, as were the others ( I can’t believe that they were first years and they don’t have a drama department. Can you believe that 3 English teachers and a group of 1st yrs would be able to pull off something so good!!).

All secondary competitors. Photos by Helen Black

Bannerman High’s performances of King Lear and Hamlet were so sophisticated and polished and as they were first up on each day, they really set the bar high for the others to follow. St Magaret Mary’s, I thought really pulled the rabbit out of the hat as they managed to make Macbeth funny as well as dramatic and Ross Hall’s performance of Macbeth was so intense with the relationship between Mac and the wife brill (and again mature) for such young people.

I actually felt quite humbled as Shakespeare isn’t really my bag and all the performances pulled me in and left me wanting more. What more can you ask of any piece of theatre?

Kate"

This years' winners were:

Lower Secondary Competition - Rosshall Academy with Macbeth


Upper Secondary Competition - St Margaret Mary's Secondary School, also with Macbeth!

Winners pictured with Jeremy Raison (Joint Artistic Director) and Kathleen Hamilton (Citizens Theatre Society)

Well done to all competitors. Another great year of work. If you weren't lucky enough to take part this year (or even if you were), we would welcome additional submissions to our Shakespeare Shortz project. This competition ran last Autumn for members of the public to submit video of themselves "doing some Shakespeare", but you can still submit clips via YouTube to be published on our website.

Hx