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Regent’s stages a weekend drama festival
Urassaya Sperbund and Meliisa Palipea, Year 10 GCSE
Drama students
On the weekend of the 28-30 of September, The Regent’s School, Pattaya
hosted the Re:ISTA drama festival for students from their two campuses –
Bangkok and Pattaya. This involved students from Years 6-9, as well as IGCSE
Drama students. The special guests for the weekend were four students from
the Baan Jing Jai orphanage.
 The
Impact workshop.
The festival included the participation of Ulrich Gottlieb, an outstanding
professional mime artist, as well as the Drama and Art teachers from both
Regent’s campuses. The theme for the weekend was the four elements: Earth,
Air, Fire and Water. This meant that each day was jam-packed with ensemble
sessions, as well as Drama workshops entitled Mask-Making, Physical Theatre,
Page-to-Stage, African Beats and Impact. It was very interesting to see
everyone trying to decipher the meanings behind each element.
Art teacher Cameron Graham led the Mask-Making workshop, in which
participants made masks to fit the four contrasting elements. ‘The process
was long, but the result was extremely worth the wait!’ said Mark in Year
10, while Christina in Year 6 exclaimed, ‘Our masks are awesome!’
Students from Baan Jing Jai
receive certificates of participation.
The Physical Theatre workshop was led by the talented
Ulrich Gottlieb. He taught mime and the skills for physical theatre. This
workshop was definitely an interesting one: ‘It was hilarious and it will
definitely help me in my future studies as a drama student,’ said Meliisa
(Year 10). Mark, in Year 10 at the Bangkok campus, agreed: ‘I can now
finally do the mime in the cage action, a dream come true!’ The
Page-to-Stage workshop was led by Head of Drama, Michael Thomas. This
session focused on scenes and characters in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer
Night’s Dream which best reflected the four elements. It also gave students
an opportunity to choose appropriate costumes and props, as well as to try
their make-up skills.
African Beats was led by Lesego Mokoma, one of the gap staff. In this
workshop students learnt about African culture, experiencing the music and
songs. Here are some thoughts from the participants: ‘I thought it was
really cool. Miss Lesego taught me a new culture, and it’s always
interesting to learn new things. I really liked the music too!’ said Lara of
Year 9. ‘I loved it! It was my highlight of the weekend,’ added David of
Year 8.
The Impact workshop was led by Head of Drama at the Bangkok campus, June
O’Neil. This activity taught the students how to do yoga, fighting and
general aggression. ‘It was very different and tiring but I enjoyed it!’
said Year 10 student Karina.
When the students weren’t busy learning new drama skills they were in their
ensemble groups (each of which was responsible for a different element)
preparing for the finale performance, which was held in the Globe Theatre on
the Sunday afternoon. During these ensembles the participants for each group
helped to develop and discuss the meaning of their element. There were 5
ensemble sessions during the weekend so every minute was precious: everyone
was so excited for the play that each and every ensemble had full
concentration and energy. It was amazing how everyone really tried their
hardest and worked beyond their limits!
Of course, the only thing that could improve on all this excitement was a
disco! By the time it was Saturday night everyone had really bonded and
their true spirits were let out. The disco was the second best thing about
the weekend (the first was the experience!). It was extremely entertaining
for us students because it was not only the students who were dancing; the
teachers were as well! There was also a talent show during the disco and the
actors of Re:ISTA soon demonstrated just how talented they were.
Sunday was a very interesting day, because it was the day of the finale
performance. The actors were nervous and excited, but we were also really
sad: it was the last day and we had to say bye to all our new friends.
During the ensembles we were polishing our performances and adding new
details. Everyone was rushing around during our breaks to get emails and
numbers; before we knew it, it was 4pm and time for the finale.
The finale performance was excellent! All the ensembles had wonderful shows
and friends, parents and teachers really enjoyed the show. One set of
parents who watched the show, the Galvins, said: ‘I never knew my son could
act! We were both very pleasantly surprised!’
Each participant loved this Re:ISTA event. We are all really happy that the
teachers put this event together and would like to say thank you! The girls
from Baan Jing Jai said, ‘We never experienced anything like it; we really
enjoyed the company of the other students and learnt so much’. Overall, the
weekend was a great experience and was something that we are all glad that
we participated in. We all agreed that it is something that we would do
again, and the skills and things that we learnt can be used in the future.
Ulrich Gottlieb’s mime
workshop warms up.
Students from both campuses
take part in the finale performance.
Lunch with Lions for children of Ban Huay Kainao
Lion Raewat Siangchin (3rd
left), president of the Chonburi Pratamnak Pattaya Lions Club, presents
Thai Encyclopedias for youngsters to the Ban Huay Kainao School
representative and children.
Narisa Nitikarn
The Chonburi Pratamnak Pattaya Lions Club led by its president
Raewat Siangchin provided a grand lunch to the children of Ban Huay
Kainao on September 26, and distributed seven Thai encyclopedias to the
youngsters along with a further two encyclopedias for additional
learning.
 Thanks
for the delicious sweets.
School director Precha Rengkhuankhwai welcomed the guests, with the
kindergarten children putting on a show that charmed everyone.
Raewat said the lunch was part of the club’s program of monthly
activities, and that Ban Huay Kainao School, in Khao Miakaew, was chosen
because of the large number of students from underprivileged families.
Club members visited the classrooms and school surroundings. This school
has 142 children but lacks books and a library. Chonburi Pratamnak
Pattaya Lions Club chose 10 impoverished students with good grades for
the next education year scholarships, which are supported by the Head
Lions Club in Bangkok.
Baan Laem Tong Action Group (Koh Phi Phi Tsunami Relief)
Team Koh Phi Phi gather
outside the Chulalongkorn lecture hall.
Cattreya Sperbund and Joyce Lin (Year 13 IB
students)
On the 24th of September, 12 Regent’s students and 7 staff
members journeyed up to the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. We met
with Dr. Rachaporn, the program director of Design and Architecture in
Chula University, and Mr. Eddy Buranakul, the president of Far Diow
Foundation, to establish goals for our long term Tsunami Relief Project
on Phi Phi Island. Later in the day, we also watched the presentations
made by the school’s Architecture major students. They presented us with
the six design projects for Baan Leam Tong International Community
Resource Centre at the INDA studio in the Architecture Department.
 Ivie
takes minutes of the meeting as Klaus and Tae look on.
During our meeting with Dr. Rachaporn and Mr. Eddy, we discussed the
progress made at the Baan Leam Tong School and our upcoming projects.
Mr. Eddy reported that the vegetable garden planted by Regent’s students
allowed the students to work together to maintain the garden… ‘The
plants were like their friends.’ He also mentioned that the volunteers
have tried to fix the cement tank, replaced the water filters and would
like to change the window shutters in the near future. The school
acquired a 10 month teaching assistance funded by the volunteers, as
well as a furnished guest room for future volunteers. The UNICEF
Organisation has started a long term project for the school, too.
 Michael
and Declan examine one of the Chula designs for the community resource
centre on Laem Tong Bay.
In our meeting, we decided upon a project name, ‘Baan Laem Tong Action
Group’ and the name we agreed on for the center was ‘Baan Laem Tong
International Community Resource Centre.’ The centre is to be built to
serve two purposes. One was to provide the children with further
education, where they could also be trained to cook and massage, which
would enable the children to work in local hotels. Secondly, the center
could be used as guest houses for volunteers who cannot afford to stay
for long at the expensive hotels. This could possibly act as an
attraction to volunteers.
 Sara
and Joyce inspect a design presented by the Chula students.
The cost of the Baan Laem Tong International Community Resource Center
has not been established yet; however, Dr. Rachaporn mentioned that it
should cost about 2 - 3 million baht in total. We came up with a few
fund-raising strategies which included charity auctions and selling
T-shirts. It was possible to involve the local hotels, which seemed
quite keen to help the community as well. In addition, the first
fund-raising opportunity is coming very soon at the International Round
Square Conference in India in October. The Regent’s delegates would
promote this project at the conference to the other Round Square
schools. They may visit the centre in the future and bring benefits to
the local school as well as learn from them themselves.
The six presentations on the design of the centre were highly
informative and innovative. The Architecture students embraced the
environmental prospective extensively while considering the local’s real
needs. Ideas such as water conservation and links between family and
children were all very interesting. Although most of us merely knew
anything about architecture, we were amazed by the plan designs and
considered them all to be worthwhile of further development. We also
agreed that the final design should integrate ideas from different
designs to make it perfect.
The day ended wonderfully with a delicious dinner prepared by the
University. The Regent’s students and staff were exhausted from working
for a long day, but all filled with creative ideas and future plans.
Everyone’s contribution on the day was outstanding and we would like to
thank Mr. Eddy, Dr. Rachaporn and the Architecture students in
particular for their hard work to push the project a big step forward.
We were looking forward to seeing the words and ideas become tangible in
the near future! (If you would like to know more about Regent’s Tsunami
project in Laem Tong Bay on Koh Phi Phi please contact Mr. Crouch at
[email protected])
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