LAMDA exams…
Why don't we do LAMDA exams? This is a question I have been asked a few times so it's probably worth answering here....
LAMDA are graded exams using monologues, duologues and/or group work following a specific syllabus and marked from fail to distinction.
The reason we don't do it is that it would take up all of our class time to prepare our young people for these exams and I'm not convinced it would be the best, most creative or helpful in terms of what we are trying to achieve at Mishmak Youth Theatre.
So what do we want to achieve? As well as putting on 2 shows a year for all our members to perform in, we want them to develop....
Self confidence, team work, creativity, responding to stimulus, building on ideas, stagecraft, putting together shows, being part of a cast of actors/performers, storytelling, creating characters; reacting to an audience, thinking on their feet, being comfortable on stage, knowing how to behave in a rehearsal room and taking the fear out of performing.
National Theatre Connections (our third annual show) allows our seniors members to draw on all the skills above working on a new script written by a professional playwright commissioned by the National Theatre. We perform a Home Performance in a familiar space (CryerArts) and then transfer our show to a new space, a professional theatre who treat our show and members like professional actors and give them the experience of a tech, get in, get out and performance in front of other NT casts.
I know from feedback from every cast we have put through NT Connections (annually since 2016) that this experience is priceless and formative, a huge learning curve and the young people who participate in this remember the experience and cherish the memories.
So we spend our time focusing on that. Performing and rehearsing and being actors in a room making stuff together. The young people who come to Mishmak are courageous artists.
If the demand to do LAMDA exams grew then I could probably offer them on an individual basis during holidays and half terms.
It would always have to be something that ran separately from our classes because I would never want our classes to become about the opinion of an examiner or following a syllabus.
That's not to say I'm against it or I would never do it. If that's what our young people wanted to do then we would do it. I don't hear many young people asking to be examined MORE than they already are. And examining art is not examining maths, there is no right answer.
Trying to get things 'right' can be the biggest hurdle to overcome for young performers and it gets in the way of freedom and expression. Technical brilliance is, of course to be admired, but art is something that moves people on an emotional level and makes them feel something.
Communication, expression, beauty. Can you examine that?
