Join Us At Ecole

Gathered in the wings, you hear the audience arrive, talking in quiet anticipation. Five minutes to curtain up, the cast is ready, are you ready? The mumbling from outside gets/becomes quieter and quieter…..they are here to see us. Will we deliver? Are the props in the right place?…….butterflies in the stomach have grown to pterodactyls. One minute……breathe deeply……….30 seconds……..the auditorium dims, slowly the curtain opens, spotlights on you……let the performance begin.

Of all of the memories of our school days, none are more lasting than those made on stage. This is why theatre at the Ecole d'Humanité plays such a big part in our lives.

For over 25 years, we have produced a yearly Shakespeare play, numerous French and German productions and indeed short films.

We believe that theatre teaches us so much about ourselves, teamwork, how to express and carry yourself, composure under pressure and most importantly, the confidence that you can do it and to realize your dreams.

Our play for 2021 directed by Melissa Bragg, brings a new slant on a Midsummer Nights Dream. Mellissa sets the scene:

Nick Bottom is in Lockdown. Trapped in his tiny apartment, the walls close in, and the only company he can find is on a screen: the Prime Minister presenting new COVID restrictions, reruns of David Attenborough’s bizarre plants and insects, a documentary on 1930s construction workers, and of course Friends. Nick collapses into sleep and his dreams haunt him, fragmented images of the digital detritus in his brain. We enter the forest of imagination with him, meeting insect fairies, a Pitcher Plant queen, a Spider King, 1930s workers staging a play, and lovers trapped in a sitcom cycle of falling in and out of love. Plus the juice of a rare flower that causes hallucinations. The nightmare ends, Nick wakes up, and though the Dragonfly Puck tells him to see his visions as a “weak and idle theme/No more yielding but a dream,” his creativity flowers into something. suddenly original, strange and “admirable.” Lockdown may confine us temporarily, but our imaginations will escape and “speak wonders.”

Find out how the Ecole can offer your child formative experiences on the stage and in the classroom here.

www.ecole.ch