Year 13 Drama performance splits the audience
13th February 25
One of the key modules of our UAL Level 3 Performing and Production Arts course sees students devising their own original plays. This year, our all-female Year 13 cohort crafted a play set in a sexual health clinic which addressed issues around female friendships, interactions and judgements.
Their play, It’s Coz We’re Women, was performed over two nights at the Etcetera Theatre Club in Camden. The twist? The audience was split, with men and women invited to different performances.
Rosy, who served as lead writer to bring together everyone’s ideas, explained: “We wanted to create a different experience for both us and the audience. It’s interesting to perform it to a group of men to see what they laugh at, see what they’re shocked at.”
The play is about a group of girls who meet coincidentally in a sexual health clinic and, through conversations and interactions, start discovering things about themselves and each other. Despite their differences, they bond over the struggles of the world we live in today.
We spoke to the creators/cast about the experience of putting the show together:
What is It’s Coz We’re Women about?
Ella: “The story is that seven girls all go to a sexual health clinic, and it turns out that a few of them know each other. They’re all there for different reasons, they’re from different parts of London and have had different experiences, but they’ve all ended up in the same place. In this play the characters all end up speaking to each other, whether they like each other or not.”
Devising a play is a key module of your UAL Level 3 Diploma – how did you go about writing this piece as a group?
Libby: “The original idea was to utilise the fact that we are a female-only cohort, and to look at a very girl-specific experience and play with that.”
Ella: “As a group we came up with the idea of setting it in a sexual health clinic then Rosy took the lead on writing the framework for the script. We then each took our own characters, took ownership of their stories and wrote our own sections. We used a shared document and worked collaboratively to create the final piece.”
Elise: “The writing process was a lot better than I might have anticipated. We’re all strong, opinionated girls but we worked together very easily.”
Rosy: “We did a mood board of ideas so that we were all in agreement and then we also planned out the order the characters would come in and what would happen. From that I wrote the outline and shared it with the group for their input and feedback. It worked really well!”
What is the message of the piece?
Rosy: “I think the main message is listening to each other. We should try to have have open ears and open hearts. The characters in this play judge each other before they know each other – and in an ideal world we wouldn’t do that.”
Ana: “There is also a sub-message to give teenage girls a break! We are dealing with a lot.”
Why did you split the audience?
Ana: “We wanted to see the difference between the male and female audiences without them being influenced by the people around them – so for example a man might react differently when he’s with other men that he would if his female partner was sat next to him.”
Ella: “We didn’t think the men would find it as funny because they can’t relate to it in the same way as women.”
Libby: “We didn’t want it to be so in your face that they felt uncomfortable, we wanted them to learn something.”
“We wanted to create interesting conversations.”
Elise: “Some of the characters and stories are in grey areas, arguments play out on stage and you don’t know who you side with. It was an interesting experience creating it and, when I delivered my monologue, I definitely felt more heard on the female night.”
Rosy: “From a performer point of view, the male audience night felt much scarier. There was a lot less laughter from the men as I think they were anxious not to laugh at the wrong thing. I wanted to create conversation and for the men to hear it, so I felt that was powerful. During the female audience performance we all said we felt more comfortable but also more excited to see what they thought of it. They laughed more and there were more tears too. I’m very proud of the piece we created.”
Audience reactions were very positive. Head of Drama, Lucy Hall, said: “The girls did such a good job, they should be very proud of themselves. It was a well written piece, performed brilliantly and with a great message behind it.”
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