The Ash Girl

Our Drama Department pulled out all the stops with a fantastic, immersive theatrical performance of The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

The play is inspired by the popular fairy tale, Cinderella, with a darker more sinister twist. This was an amazing achievement with girls involved from Years 7 to 13, not just in acting roles but also assisting with lighting, hair and make-up and other technical aspects of theatre work. The lack of Drama provision in schools has been in the news recently, but we pride ourselves on our offer of GCSE and A-level Drama as well as offering a Technical Theatre Award to girls in the Upper School who may wish to be involved in theatre but not actually in performance.

The versatility of our performing arts centre really came into its own for this production, with our first real use of the ‘thrust’ stage, in which the audience sat on three sides of the performance as opposed to just at the front. This worked really well, fully immersing the audience in the set as the magical characters flooded all areas of the theatre – it really was outstanding, as you can see from the images in our gallery:

The audience loved it, and the girls enjoyed themselves immensely and learned lots of new skills and techniques, as expressed in their comments:

Susie (Fairy) “I really enjoyed being a part of The Ash Girl cast. It was a great experience that I will remember forever.”
Georgia (Ruth) “It was a memorable experience and it felt great to be part of such a unique production.”
Flo (Lust) “Being new to the school, my first show allowed me to meet lots of new people and I really enjoyed it.”
Rachel (Otter) “I enjoyed being part of such a fun and energetic cast and seeing the production come together.”
Jess (Hair and make-up) “I really enjoyed being part of such a creative team.”