Spring Cabaret at Glasshouse College
On Wednesday 24th March, Glasshouse College Students and Staff took part in a Cabaret-to a socially distanced audience and via live link to those not able to access the theatre.
By Justin Scriven, Drama Tutor, Glasshouse College
“There has been a history of cabaret events at Glasshouse College from it’s early years and I decided to re-introduce them around 6 years ago as a way of allowing staff and students to share a ‘hidden’ talent that often goes unrecognized. Each term has a cabaret and the rules are, that all acts have to be ‘organic’ and no backing tracks are allowed, this allows for a rich and natural feel. Acts over the years have ranged from singing, playing an instrument, poetry, drama, magic and circus skills to name a few.
In more recent years the Cabarets have been given a theme or a storyline and all contributions have to connect with or be woven into that storyline in some way. Past Cabarets themes or storylines have included a Circus storyline, A Glassmaker Ball which celebrated the history of Glassmaking on the College site.
The Cabaret for our spring term was an environmental theme, with a storyline written around a gathering of environmentalist attending an event called ‘The World is Ours’ led by 3rd year student Kieran Constantinou, leading and hosting.
Students and staff were given a few weeks to come up with ideas and to rehearse their acts in there own time.
A group of students and staff recorded themselves singing and playing ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Louis Armstrong and the finale finished with a live version being sang with a slide show of photographs taken by staff and students of the colleges natural environment-an idea of the student Council.
Everyone was invited to write a pledge on a paper leaf, something that they could do to help to look after our world, something that is very important within the Ruskin mill Trust ethos. This has now gone towards a display in our dining room.
We have lots of talented musicians, artists, poets etc. at Glasshouse College and so this is the place to showcase.
It also brings the whole college together in unity. Our next cabaret will be held in the Summer, an outdoor cabaret with a ‘Festival’ theme”
