House Play Festival 2022 Winners Announced!

A whole year and two weeks later than initially scheduled, the school came together to celebrate our annual House Play Festival Awards Ceremony.

As lockdowns hit across the world, the idea of the ‘shared experience’ that we love and value in live performances was the very thing we weren’t allowed to do. But the arts got resourceful with theatres live-streaming performances for audiences to watch at home. Oakeley’s were particularly inspired by this, writing their House Play to be performed via Zoom!

Now two years later, and with the threat Covid posed beginning to recede, its impact on some performances was still apparent. Houses had to be resourceful, with actors and directors stepping into roles at the very last minute. This contingency planning was an additional responsibility on top of the list of jobs a director does. Well done to those of you that dealt with this with professionalism, and who stepped up to ensure the play must go on! Directors, well done – you thrived with the workload and responsibility of directing, and you can be assured that you have developed a vast range of transferable life skills during this process, from meeting deadlines to improved patience. 

With the long-anticipated arrival of the festival week, at last, we certainly weren’t let down in the standard of plays. The judges thoroughly enjoyed each and every play. There were lots of well-judged individual performances, and plenty of much needed comedy, making certain awards very tricky to judge given the amount of competition within the comedy category. 

A big thank you to our judges Mr Callendar and Miss Withy for being so generous with their time during festival week, and for being so thorough in their discussions and decision making.

This year, we made a long-overdue change to some of the central awards by de-gendering them. The Best Supporting and Best Male/Female Actor awards have adapted to become ‘Best Supporting and Best Actor in a Comedy, and Best Supporting and Best Actor in a Drama’. We should all have the opportunity to be judged on our individual merit, not on our gender. What matters is the pupils, as individuals, their talents and what they each bring to the stage. That is all that should ever matter, and we’ll shout loud and proud to achieve this!

A big well done to all of the houses, the casts and directors. This year has highlighted that House Play is all about the house spirit, the missed cues, the technical hitches and how you cope with them. That, and those moments where everything comes together to create moments of pure magic. That’s what theatre is all about!

Finally, a huge thank you to the four students who watched every single House Play, that is roughly six hours of your life that you spent enriching your experience and supporting your peers, as well as perhaps sussing out the competition.

– Mrs Orzel, Head of Drama

You can read up on the winners of the awards below:

Best Preparation – Worcester House with Tales of Worcester House

Best Costume Design – Holland’s House with Hard Candy

Technical Achievement – North Town with Garth Marenghi’s Scotch Mist

Best Staging – West Town with In The Mood

Choreography – Watson’s House with Animal Farm

Artistic Achievement – North Town with Garth Marenghi’s Scotch Mist

Stage Presence – Millie Campbell from Worcester House and Ellis from Moberly’s House

Best 3rd Form Performance – Danny from Wiseman’s House and Jodie from Holland’s House

Achievement – Oakeley’s with Bad Auditions

Rising Star – Alex from North Town

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama – Ethan from South Town

Best Actor in a Drama – Malachy from South Town

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy – Stella from Hallward’s House 

Best Actor in a Comedy – Velvet from Hallward’s House

Best Director – Olivia and Elsa from Hallward’s House

Best Comedy – Hallward’s House with The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon 

Best Drama – South Town with Shook House 

Best Production – South Town with Shook House