Teenage fang club (From Wandsworth Guardian)

Teenage fang club

4:40pm Friday 2nd July 2010

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Richmond Shakespeare Society’s (RSS) All’s Well youth theatre will be performing its latest production, A Vampire Story, at the Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, tonight (Friday) and tomorrow.

The play was written by Moira Buffini for the National Theatre’s New Connections youth theatre programme in 2008. Switching between the modern day and the 19th century, it tells the story of two mysterious young women who turn up in an English town and cause a stir.

Are they sisters or mother and daughter? Are they on the run, or are they vampires? The mystery at the heart of A Vampire Story steadily unravels.

According to director Simon Radford, who is helming his third All's Well production, the actors, aged from 14-18, took to the play straight away, thanks in no small part to the success of the Twilight saga and TV series such as True Blood, which have made vampires all the rage these days Getting young people excited about theatre, says Radford, is the key to All’s Well’s ethos.

“Some of the participants were really shy when they first came to the group, and now they've really grown and have new friends and will carry on coming,” he says.

“We really try and help them grow as actors over the course of the year, and many take it forward. We have had one girl who has gone on to the Oxford School of Performing Arts and another is going off to Central – but there are others who just come for the social aspect and really enjoy it.”

RSS operates two youth theatres – as well as All’s Well, there is also group for under-14s. The groups meet for three terms a year with the first two terms focusing on improvisation, text and voice development followed by a final term in which summer productions are staged.

Performances of A Vampire Story are at 7.45pm tonight and tomorrow and there is also a Saturday matinee at 3pm. The production is recommended for those under the age of 13. For more information and to book, visit richmondshakespeare.org.uk Anyone interested in joining either youth theatre group should contact Karin Abbott on karin.abbott@yahoo.co.uk

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