Twenty Felsted students travelled to New York to showcase their acting and musical theatre talents in live outdoor performances at the 'Intrepid' Battleship, outside 'Ripley’s Believe It Or Not' in Times Square and at Pearl Studios.

The students, who all starred in Felsted’s production of Les Miserables (School Edition) last year, received a lot of positive feedback from the crowds that stopped to watch their performances, with some enquiring where they might see Felsted students perform in the future.

The students spent a week in New York, walking 74 miles exploring the city and its many famous landmarks. They had the opportunity to participate 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 Felsted School comments; “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 publically outdoors in New York.  The week will stay in our memory for a lifetime.” 

There are many opportunities for those interested in drama at Felsted including workshops, trips and regular school productions. Felsted’s next whole school production is ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ which will be performed in November with tickets soon to be available from www.felsted.org/events. 

Plans are also being made for a future performing arts trip to Hollywood, Los Angeles. Drama Scholarships are available to children from the age of 11 who are showing genuine talent and potential. More information can be found here.