| The Lowdown... | The Variety Society will be performing Guys And Dolls at The Performance Centre, Bretton Hall on Friday 27th & Saturday 28th January, 2006. Performances start at 7.30pm
Booking office: (0113)3439246 |
As a result of the large scale of the University of Leeds' campus IN Leeds and its greater number of students, the small performance and cultural industries department, situated in the picturesque village of West Bretton, outside Wakefield, often gets forgotten. Bretton Hall is an active and exciting campus, which is the home of the performance-based degrees such as acting, dancing and music theatre. On campus the students work exceptionally hard, putting in nearly all their free time, for extra curricular activities that give them a chance to do what they love - performing.
 | | The show is 'extremely professional.' |
A new society created for this academic year, The Variety Society, is already taking big steps to becoming another successful aspect of Bretton Hall’s vibrant extra-curricular performance scene. The first, and ambitious, project is the all singing, all dancing 1920s musical Guys and Dolls. This show boasts a 26-strong cast, plus all the behind scene crew, who have dedicated a great many hours all last semester to be able to impress audiences on 27th and 28th January 2006. The quality of the show despite, in theory, being amateur, is extremely professional. The talent of the students is immense; here, after all, are the performers of the future. Unlike a lot of other degree courses, where the students put in only the necessary time and priorities socialising, the undergraduates at Bretton have to commit to many extra curricular shows to improve their talents and gain the experience that is absolutely necessary if they wish to conquer the ever-elusive world of performance. Their university lives are preparation for them before they enter the “real world” after graduation. And it is not only the cast that have put in the hard work - behind the scenes work has been going on since June. The preparation for such a large scale production is vast, and all the work is done by students - set, costumes, direction, stage management, to name but a few of the essential but often forgotten jobs, that are necessary when putting on a production.
 | | It's all part of being a student at Bretton |
As a member of the crew, I can say that the experience so far has been both exciting and terrifying. The amount of work necessary to get this production on its feet is incredible and I certainly did not imagine that it would be so hard. But it has been a fantastic learning experience. Never again will I be able to watch a show without having a great amount of respect for the production staff and all the work that they do, as well as the performers on stage. The most important thing, I think, is that we have had a great amount of fun working on Guys and Dolls, a fact that I think shines through every single performance and, we hope, will be passed on to the audience. |
