The Masterclass aims to replicate the rehearsal process by taking a key chunk of text and trying it different ways -calling on input and suggestion from the students themselves.

First the director and students invite the student to ask 'Why is this a key scene?' and endeavour to engage them in brief discussion of the scene's context within the play.

We then invite the students to play with it – ‘play’ being the operative word. If it’s a funny scene, they might ask the actors to try it heartbroken or dead pan – as if expecting very bad news or exhausted after a hard day’s work. If it’s a poignant, emotional scene we might try it at a hundred miles an hour, or whilst making a cooked breakfast for the entire village – the possibilities are endless. What it does invariably achieve – apart from a great deal of entertainment – is an exciting challenge to preconceptions. A person does not always shout when she is angry, he or she might smile or even laugh hysterically when very sad, he can be frantically busy but mind numbingly bored. Exciting and revealing discoveries come out of ‘play’ which encourage students to look beneath the surface - and might just inspire the actors to take something new into their next performance. This exercise also ensures this scene, if nothing else, will be remembered in detail by the students so they should thereafter be able to quote from it with great fluency!

The scene is performed one last time to conclude the session.

Masterclasses can take place in the theatre before or after a show, or in your school. It may also be possible to bring a full show into your school, depending on the scale of the production. If it is a complex production we can offer a ‘staged reading’ in costume with some movement and minimal set.