With her background in drama education, Emily Angel is a Performing Arts graduate from AUB. As well as singing, acting and directing, she is also teaching across the three age groups at Lighthouse Youth Theatre.
Which groups are you teaching and what are you teaching?
I teach all of the ages, so ages five up to 16. Last time we were just playing games, just improv, just having fun, just doing different characterisations. It’s getting the kids to come out of their shell, get to know each other, and be the best performer that they can be.
Are they quite responsive?
We did a singing exercise, a new exercise where I think I called the character Fred and we had to go up the scale as we climbed the ladder.
We started with one, two, three and go up the scale of singing and then Fred had to jump off the ladder. Then we introduced a shark and we did it all again and the kids, literally, I’ve never seen them so captivated.
The exercise was really fun; it was really good, so I’m definitely going to carry on doing that because it’s also warming up their vocals as well as getting them to do something fun.
What experience have you had teaching young people?
I teach at a few different schools. One of them is my agent’s school which is mainly about TV and film. I did my placement with her while I was at uni. That’s how I got introduced into teaching because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Obviously, I want to perform, but you need to have another role alongside performing. Teaching is quite cool because I went to youth theatre from the age of two till I was at college, so basically my whole life.
That shaped my wanting to be a performer and when I did my placement with her, it was really fun, I really loved it and she asked me to come back and be a teacher. Then I went away for a bit, moved out of the area, but I’ve come back and she’s on maternity leave so I’m helping out with her classes, getting back into teaching.
Lighthouse Youth Theatre is different because obviously this is theatre whereas the other classes are for screen acting, so it’s interesting to see the different groups and the different style of acting that they’re doing. It’s a bit bigger when it’s the theatre, more exaggerated.
This all adds to your experience then?
Well, yes. I act, sing and dance… and teach! In February I came back off a UK tour playing
Princess Jasmine in Aladdin – it was a panto tour – and I travelled around the whole of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. I did that for two and a half months; that was really fun.
The year before that I performed on the Polar Express at Swanage Railway with Joe Diaper who works on Stage Door at Lighthouse. I performed here at uni as well, in the Studio, and we were able to come and see shows here as well.
How have you found the young people in the classes so far?
The first time, all the kids were in their shells, a little bit shy. And the second time, you could see that they had all made friends with each other because they’d seen each other since I’d last seen them.
They were so different; all getting on, they were really putting themselves out there, really having a go at the activities. And it was really nice to see how two sessions can change and make them come out of their shell.
Everyone’s taking part, which is the joy of it all, but can you spot the ones with real potential at such an early stage?
Yeah, with a few I think: ‘Wow, you really need to keep at it.’ There are others who might be a bit shy, so you just encourage them to come out of their shell and give them that confidence, but I feel like everyone that attends has talent and they all have potential.
Some kids can overthink it, but the majority of them don’t, they just let loose and don’t care about being silly. They just do whatever they want to do and not feel like anyone’s going to judge them. And it’s beautiful to see, because sometimes I wish I could be like that – they’re just so innocent that they just don’t care.
That’s when you get the best performance out of them, because they’re not holding back.
And are you learning along the way as well?
Yeah, I’d say so, because I’m relatively new to teaching, I’m learning to teach what I know to them and spot who needs more support, who needs pushing to really go for it because they’ve all got potential.
It’s interesting, and it’s something that I’m very glad I’m doing because it’s nice to be able to support children to be what they want to be.
I never went to like a stage school, it was just like a youth theatre, and I feel like that was better because there was no pressure and I could just make friends and perform, be silly, experiment and have no judgement. I feel like that’s definitely shaped me into who I am today, and it’s made me have that passion for wanting to be an actor.
All those teachers, I didn’t realise it then, but obviously now I’m like, they’re exactly like me, and they really helped me, like give me the confidence to do this, so I’m happy that I’m passing that on to the younger generation.
(NC)
