Building a school theatre is always a good idea.<\/p>\n\n\n
A wise and kindly headmaster once ticked me off for running a\nfund-raising campaign to build a new sports centre for the school of\nwhich I was headteacher, and which had not then entered The Schools Arms\n Race, with new facilities popping up like a rash.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cGood luck with\n that,\u201d he smiled, in a \u2018Been there, got the T-shirt\u2019 kind of way, then\nadded: \u201cYou do know you\u2019re building the wrong thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Not\nsurprisingly, there had been considerable debate in my school about what\n we might consider essential, what would be nice if you could have it,\nand how would you raise the money for it anyway? Priorities and power\nbases had all been aired. We were lucky to have a couple of hundred\nacres, so lacrosse pitches, tennis courts and cross-country running were\n no problem. We even had a swimming pool, though that was outdoors, and,\n of course, it had limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n
So we were not badly off for\nsport, but not up to speed in the mid-\u201990s. And oh how it rained. And\nthat brought out the worst (best? I never did decide) in our lovely head\n of sport, who promptly brought the lacrosse team indoors, where it\nappeared the only available space was a beautiful 19th-century ballroom,\n in which Jane Austen would have been at home and which still had its\noriginal chandeliers.<\/p>\n\n\n
OK, sometimes it was the netball team. That\n did not seem a whole lot less likely to do damage to a listed building.\n Never mind the health and fitness of our girls, who were at the time\nnot half so keen on a new sports hall as was the head of sport. Of\ncourse, we needed a sports hall to preserve our architectural heritage\nand my sanity as headteacher with an office right next door, and to\nboost our marketing efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n
So I was convinced, as were governors. If this was the wrong thing to build, what would have been the right thing?<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cWhat you really need,\u201d said my friendly neighbouring head, \u201cIs a theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Now\n why didn\u2019t I think of that? I do not recall it ever being a runner in\nthe discussions. For one thing, we had only a fledgling drama\ndepartment, the subject not then being developed in the curriculum, as\nit was later, with GCSE drama<\/a>\n and A-level theatre studies. Any school play leaned heavily on the\nEnglish department, sometimes the music department, and art, and then\nanyone on the staff who was prepared to help backstage or on the front\ndesk. As amateur as you could imagine, even if sometimes very effective.<\/p>\n\n\n And\n the productions were terrific, but rehearsed mostly in classrooms then\nperformed in the school hall for a couple of nights, with only\noccasional grumps if the staging got in the way of the usual assemblies.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cIf you have any choice at all, build a stage, and they will come.\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n In my school, a theatre did not seem like an urgent need. More wise head-shaking.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThink\n about it,\u201d the headteacher admonished. \u201cWhen you build a sports centre\nyou get teaching and practising and competition, and your school may get\n better at competition because of your new training facilities. But\nthat\u2019s what it is, a glossy, shiny place to train. It\u2019s not exactly a\nfield of dreams, is it? Who will get in and see it in all its glory \u2013\nparents when they trot round the school to decide if they will sign up a\n child \u2013 after that, probably not much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cBut if you build a\ntheatre \u2013 now that is about performance, not training. Being wonderful,\nright there on stage, today, tonight, for the next three days, and all\nthe parents will come, and they will be happy, and celebrate the success\n of their own children and everyone else\u2019s. And they will gather for\ncoffee, or even a glass of wine \u2013 you can make a bit on that \u2013 and they\nwill talk of how well the school is doing, and how great it is to have\nboth a fantastic education and an avenue to the stars with an Oscar in\nyour sights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cA theatre,\u201d he said, \u201cis about community and mutual\n support and applause and wellbeing. A sports centre is about\ncompetition and aggression and even cheating. I know which I would\nrather build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n I have long thought he had a point. And I have not\nbeen surprised by the number of schools which have come to the notion of\n building a theatre or a performing arts centre and found well-springs\nof approval they might not have expected 10 years ago. In my days at the\n Boarding Schools\u2019 Association, one proud headmaster showed me his newly\n built theatre, bubbling with the story of how an elderly lady had come\nto visit the school after her husband\u2019s death. He had been an old boy\nof the school, she wanted to see the school which had helped make him\nthe man he was. She was shown the half-built theatre, and told of their\nscheme to name seats as the donor wished as part of their fund-raising.\nThe lady reported that her husband had always spoken fondly of being in\nKing Lear in school \u2013 he had never forgotten it. She went home and paid\nfor a whole row of seats to be named in his honour. Hard to imagine this\n level of sentiment and commitment to a viewing gallery over a\nbasketball court.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cA theatre is about\ncommunity and mutual support and applause and wellbeing. A sports centre\n is about competition and aggression and even cheating. I know which I\nwould rather build.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n The times themselves\nhave, seemingly, changed. Regardless of the relentless insistence that\nany reasonably bright student should, of course, study STEM subjects so\nthat they can become rich in the best jobs and famous because of the\ntechnological inventions they are going to create in our Brave New\n21st-Century World, there is growing awareness of the value of the\narts. Here are avenues of self-expression and pathways to considerable\ncareer greatness if \u2013 well what? If you have the talent, and the\ndedication, and the teaching, and the encouragement and, yes, the\nfacilities to discover, nurture and display your talent. And \u2013 yes, I\nknow \u2013 the luck, but that\u2019s the case in any field of endeavour.<\/p>\n\n\n I\nrecently visited a prep school proud of its place in the careers of\nhousehold-name actors. Posters for their latest films are part of the\nschool\u2019s declaration of the diversity of talents which they value,\nexercise, and promote. And who, at nine or ten years of age, does not\nwant to be famous? In this school, it\u2019s not just about excellent grades,\n it\u2019s also about discovering what else you can do, and developing\nconfidence which will last a lifetime. One of my sons swears, three A\ngrades at A-level notwithstanding, that the best thing an independent\neducation did for him was to make a happy public speaker of him. <\/p>\n\n\n And\n that\u2019s another thing about theatres \u2013 it doesn\u2019t have to be King Lear\nor An Inspector Calls. It can be dance, and stand-up comedy, and talent\nshows, and big band house competitions, and choirs, little, large, a\ncapella and rock, and pianists and string quartets and orchestras and\nbrass bands playing the theme from Game of Thrones. <\/p>\n\n\n In fact, if you have any choice at all, build a stage, and they will come.<\/p>\n\n\n This article first appeared in IE-Today<\/a> on 1 April 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Building a school theatre is always a good idea. A wise and kindly headmaster once ticked me off for running a fund-raising campaign to build a new sports centre for the school of which I was headteacher, and which had not then entered The Schools Arms Race, with new facilities popping up like a rash.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[77,89,216],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","tag-drama","tag-facilities","tag-theatre"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}