A group of students from Felsted School recently travelled to New York to showcase their acting and musical theatre talents in live outdoor performances.
Twenty performing arts students showcased their skills at the ‘Intrepid’ Battleship, outside ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ in Times Square and at Pearl Studios. They received positive feedback from the crowds that stopped to watch their performances, with some enquiring where they might them perform in the future.
They spent exploring New York and its famous landmarks, participating in the famous 4th of July celebrations by watching the fireworks at Brooklyn Bridge Park, as well as visiting Central Park, Ellis Island, the Empire State building, Times Square, Wall Street and the 9/11 memorial and museum.
As well as giving their own performances, the students also saw a production of ‘Sweeney Todd’, toured Radio City, took ‘The Ride’ and participated in two workshops on stage combat and improvisation at Pearl Studios.
Melanie Donaldson, director of performing arts at the school, commented: “The students’ performances were incredible and rivalled the professional standard of any production that you might see on Broadway. The trip itself was a unique opportunity for the students and they demonstrated huge courage in performing with little technical rehearsal prior, adapting well to the face to face interaction offered by performing so publicly outdoors in New York. The week will stay in our memory for a lifetime.”