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The Trojan War started off as a classroom project to improve the class 7’s level of English. However it grew into something much bigger. We started off by handing some of the roles out to see if the students would be able to perform a play in a language foreign to them. The students took to it well and started to develop their characters. Having got a firm idea of how the play would be accepted we decided to widen the play and offer it to other students.

During project week we gathered all of the students that were interested in taking part and divided the roles up. In the mean-time some of the students from the ninth class and a couple from the seventh helped us with building the set. As it was our first play we did not want to invest too much into the stage and scenery and so we opted for using boxes and painting them to represent the wall. As it happened, the students did a marvellous job of painting and assembling our stage and we were truly surprised by the excellent outcome.

This gave our actors an idea of how big their working area was. We were lucky to have three of our main characters Moritz, Michael and Charles who had learnt their scripts off by heart and were very comfortable in their role. They gave the newer actors confidence and helped the play move forward. With four teachers directing and around 18 students acting, the play was forming nicely. The students had three full days before the summer holidays and around a day and a half after the holidays to practice. They also put time in every lunchtime before in order to get it perfect.

The day of the play had its own stresses and strains as we only had access to where our stage would be for a short amount of time but all of the students pitched in regarding helping building the stage. With some last minute additions of lighting and microphones we were ready to perform which was just as well as the theatre was starting to fill up, our audience was ready!

The play went smoothly and all of our actors performed exceptionally well. There were laughs and surprises but more importantly the students enjoyed themselves. We as teaching staff were extremely proud of our students and  extremely happy with what they did. Their commitment, enthusiasm and excellent humour made it really special. What is even more important to remember is that for every one of them they were speaking in a foreign language, not an easy feat.