Epsom College in Malaysia (ECiM) is the first ever school or education institution in Malaysia to hold a Theatresports™ license. Theatresports is a format invented by theatre practitioner Keith Johnstone and is licensed by the Theatresports™ Institute in Calgary, Canada. The event involves improvised theatre games performed by teams who compete to win. The teams take part in different games to structure short improvised scenes such as 'The Alphabet Game' (where each person speaks with the next letter of the alphabet) or 'Yes and' (where each new speaker must begin with this phrase and build on the ideas added by the first previous speaker). At ECiM, students practice each week and work up to regular competitions performed in front of an audience.
For our students, the focus is on building confidence and providing an opportunity for things to fail horribly and it still be okay. For students in a high pressure system with big expectations for examination success, an opportunity to learn to be okay with failure; to learn that the world doesn't end and you can get back up again, is invaluable. The co-curricular group has grown in popularity from 4 students in the first ever session to a regular weekly meeting of 25 students this term who have fun collaborating, creating, performing and being silly.
We have also just launched a parent and staff group which meet informally on Saturday mornings. This is a great way to welcome parents into the college community and to share with them some of the values we are instilling in their children. They are quickly establishing that when it goes wrong we can sometimes create even funnier performances. This activity forms only one part of an extremely active Drama Department at ECiM which includes multiple school plays (musical and non-musical), a House Drama competition, regular showcases of classwork, GCSE and A level Drama & Theatre and a large performing arts festival (Epsom Edge) in June of each year. Involvement in drama related activities such as these is shown to boost literacy and numeracy scores and the GCSE and A Level options can be incredibly useful to university applicants looking to stand out from the crowd.
Theatresports™ might not officially be a university requirement but the skills of resilience, positivity, performance confidence and imagination will benefit the lives of its participants.
