Dressed in Red, Dressed in Red, Little Red Riding Hood...

Flowers for the forest

Thursday 27 June marked the first ever Theatre Arts performance at Gymboree Chiswick! It's a class I've wanted to offer for some time and with the launch of our drop-off classes this year it was the perfect opportunity.

For ten weeks our three little actors have been working on The Little Red Riding Hood and we've been amazed and delighted at what they've achieved.

Trees and bushes

The Theatre Arts course is designed to run as a cycle and it requires both regular attendance and a lot of hard work from its participants, both in and out of class. It's been fascinating to watch our children engaging with simplified versions of the same theatre games and performance exercises that I've done myself at both university and drama school. They've exceeded all my expectations in terms of their concentration and ability to understand the performance concept. A, H and S were only 3 (in fact in S's case 2!) at the time of the performance and it was one of my proudest moments in my six years with Gymboree.

Seeing how proud they were of their own achievements was also really special for us - building their own set

Mr Wolf & LRRH

and working on their own costumes has helped so much with giving them an idea of how a show fits together. It's also inspired us to start organising trips to the theatre and other kids activities which will hopefully be starting next month.

I strongly believe that this class represents the beginnings of the core performance skills of acting, singing and dancing and will give them a great base to continue these pursuits through school and beyond. Next month we begin rehearsals again although the script has yet to be chosen!

If you'd like your child to enrol please get in touch now as we have maximum of 8 spaces available - please also get in touch if you'd like to learn more about the benefits of the Theatre Arts programme.