Theatre: Fringe Festival

On May 9, we invited Carys Lewis to speak to us about the Toronto Fringe Festival.

Before the session started, Lynda showed some of us how to make some fresh lemonade using lemons, honey and ice-water. It tasted awesome!

Carys is really experienced in performing and acting on stage. She told us that theatre requires the person to have the ability to speak clearly and loudly for every audience member to hear. She also told us that we may go have the opportunity to go and watch some of the performances that will be coming up in July during Fringe Festival. It sounds interesting!

Everyone was listening to Carys Lewis

Next, Carys showed us some basic training moves for theatre. It is  a series of pre-training and stretching exercises that prepares the actor for the performance. The exercises included one where we had to make funny noises while letting air out from our diaphragm. This helps to train the performers ability to project their voices. It was great to get to move around and pretend that we were getting ready to be on stage.

After the session with Carys to learn about theatre performances, we played a game and Carys stayed to join us. Lynda wrote our names on the blackboard first. Everyone took turns to say something that they had done before, that they think no one else might have experienced before. If nobody else had tried that before, then the person gets a point.

When it was my turn, I said that I have been to at least 6 different countries. The other one that I said was that I once killed a rabbit by throwing it against the wall, when I was really young! I didn’t get the point the first time round, but I got one point for the second one round. The winner of this game was Emma at the end, and she got a little prize from Lynda. Congratulations!

Basic Training

At the end of the session, we learnt more about theatre, the Fringe Festival, and also got to know one another better! It was a lot of fun!

Written by: Jessica Wang
Edited by: Lynda Young
Posted by: Jessica Wang