There is an incredible amount of enthusiasm for MGS Drama, and shows are directed and produced by staff from all departments, as well as by pupils themselves. The system encourages and rewards independence and initiative from all the result? Pure excellence! Our performances also include girls from the Manchester High School for Girls and Withington Girls' School, and are an excellent social opportunity for all those involved.

There is a Technical Crew made up of pupils from many different year groups who are involved in the technical side of the theatre ranging from lighting design to set construction and managing Front of House. Professionalism is strongly promoted and many useful skills are taught by our resident Theatre Manager, Peter Greenall.

The programme for the academic year 2008/9 saw productions of Bertold Brecht's dark satire The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, as well as adaptations of Brecht’s The Caucasion Chalk Circle and Mother Courage. We also saw productions of Tom Stoppard's surreal comedy Dogg’s Hamlet/Cahoot’s Macbeth, Alan Ayckbourn’s The Boy who fell into a Book and many curriculum based shows including adaptations of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Sophocles.

Some older boys, under the direction of Susan James and Dan Farr, produced a compelling version of the American courtroom drama 12 Angry Men and a Sixth Form production of Tartuffe led by former pupil Lorenzo Santinelli, which included girls from Withington.

The Year 8 Shakespeare Festival tackled Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice and The Comedy of Errors and in the summer we were treated to a dance production in the style of Stomp directed by long time Stomp performer Peter Francis.  

We also launched our roadshow production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which toured to several local primary schools and will continue on the road this year.

In the programme for the academic year 2009/10, included: A Christmas production of Stephen Sondheim’s hilarious musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a production of Ben Johnson’s Volpone, along with the Year 8 Shakespeare Festival, which will present Macbeth, A Winter’s Tale, Henry IV Part I, and The Tempest. 

 

Pupils who elect to take drama in Years 9 and 10 have their own festivals, and Year 11 boys present a festival of GCSE work.



All boys taking drama in the curriculum have regular visits to see plays at the Royal Exchange Theatre, The Lowry, The Library theatre and other theatres in the area. We also offer regular co-curricular theatre trips – open to all boys – to Stratford-upon-Avon, London and, bi-annually to New York.

 

Numerous Old Mancunians were inspired by Drama at MGS including Sir Nicholas Hytner (Chairman of the National Theatre and Director of Alan Bennett's The History Boys), actors, Sir Ben Kingsley and Robert Powell, actor and comedian Chris Addison and film director and writer, Michael Wood.

 

We regularly host visiting professional theatre practitioners. Recent visits have seen our boys in workshops with the directors of Frantic Assembly and dancers from Royal Northern Ballet. Sir Ben Kingsley visited some time ago to give an acting masterclass in support of our Bursary Appeal and Nicholas Hytner visited, along with playwright Alan Bennett for a Q and A session with older boys in support of the new Drama Centre appeal.

 

Sir Ben Kingsley: Extract from The Independent 6 March 2010 - The family moved to Salford and Krishna attended Manchester Grammar School. Such a good school, he enthuses today, such a wonderful melting pot of all sorts of boys. I was blessed by being a very popular child. I was often the life and soul of the classroom... By coincidence, he was in the same class as Robert Powell. One of them went on to play Gandhi and Moses; the other to play Jesus Christ. It must have been some classroom.  He always had another string to his bow, literally, as a singer and composer. I sang as a child. I used to lead the choir at school. I very much enjoyed composing songs for As You Like It and other plays when I was in rep. The last thing I wrote was the music for Brecht's play Baal, just before I did Gandhi. Brian Epstein saw me in the 1960s [playing the singing, guitar-playing narrator of A Smashing Day, with Robert Powell accompanying on harmonica]. Read full article here.

Extract from the Daily Mail 21 May 2010 - The dark family secret that drove Ben Kingsley to success.  Speaking about his parents expectations that he would follow in the footsteps of his father and brother as a doctor: I rather lazily didn't challenge it. I did physics, chemistry and biology at Manchester Grammar School. I don't regret that. It has given me a forensic fascination with taking a character apart. Read full article here.

 

Michael Wood: But where I really found myself was on the stage. I can't count the number of times that I played the female lead to Robert Powell's male lead. The Drama Department was phenomenal. MGS produced the first amateur production anywhere in the world of Bertold Brecht's 'Caucasian Chalk Circle' and when they produced their own version of Oedipus Rex, the Head of Classics actually wrote the translation - that was their attention to excellence.
Extract from a conversation during Hugh Oldham Lecture day in July 2006 Read more about Michael here

Chris Addison: All schools offer frustrated, snotty adolescents something to kick against. Good schools offer creative channels for the energy to streak down. The best schools have teachers who encourage the digging of new channels altogether. I can't think of anywhere I would rather have been a frustrated, snotty adolescent than MGS.
Extract from MGS News interview in March 2009 Read more about Chris here.

Robert Powell: I enjoyed my time at MGS but not particularly time spent in the class room. Although I had a foundation scholarship I think that was more to do with IQ than any academic ability. Energy that wasn’t spent playing rugby, cricket and tennis was devoted to discovering ways of getting through the School without actually doing any work. Not to be recommended really, though I did learn a lot about guile.

 

On stage it was a different story; as a junior Robert was already playing leads in the main productions and at 12 took the lead in Moliere’s Scapin.  By 17, while sitting his final exams, he played King Lear to historian Michael Wood’s Cordelia.  The High Master’s final comment on his report was that he ‘very much enjoyed his Lear.’  After all, said Robert laughing, he could hardly make a positive comment about my academic career could he?
Extract from MGS News interview in November 2009
Read more about Robert here

To see more pictures from our Drama Department please follow the link to either Junior Drama or Senior Drama

Telephone: 0161 224 7201

Head of Department Ext 300


Staff 

Sara Van der Ouderaa

John Tucker

Barry Townsend

Susan James

Lydia Nelson

Viv Horsfield

Nicky Smythe