Drama teacher and theatre director Tony Kingston’s mission to promote English language theatre in Luxembourg and boost the confidence of young local actors has been paying off handsomely. His BGT theatre group is peopled with young thespians, many female, who have more often than not come through drama groups established in Luxembourg schools, be they state run or private English-language institutions. And evidence of that trend for secondary schools around the grand duchy to augment their English teaching with an English language theatre options can be seen over the weekend of 18 and 19 March at the Festival of English Language School Theatre (FEST) in Mersch.
As a bi-annual event, FEST has escaped the worst effects of the covid pandemic. The 2020 edition took place just six days before the first lockdown. “But it has definitely had a knock-on effect this time,” says Kingston. “I mean, it's taken a long time for schools to decide if they're getting involved.”
The decision had already been taken to reduce participation at the festival from ten to nine drama groups and to drop the Sunday afternoon performances altogether so that the event is focused on two days.
Novices gaining confidence
Gina Millington, who has starred in several shows for Kingston’s BGT theatre group, is the first director at FEST who’s actually been through the drama groups as a student. “I suppose that is what FEST is about, in one sense,” says Kingston. “It’s the people coming through and gaining confidence and experience.”
Millington’s group at the European School in Mamer is performing a comedy by Siân Lewis titled The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Sister, which kicks off the Saturday afternoon programme. They are one of the youngest groups at the festival and many of the actors are novices. “A few of them came from the drama group from last year, but the thing was when they didn’t get to put on any kind of show in 2021,” she explains.
The choice of play was made after Millington workshopped a couple of scenes from the Lewis piece to find out what sort of genre her students would be most comfortable with. “Obviously with a younger group, and less experienced actors, I didn’t want to go with anything too heavy or too serious. It was important that they were enjoying what they were doing. So, I made the ultimate choice… but I think they were happy with what I chose.”
The experience has given Millington a new level of appreciation for directing and the production side of theatre. “I have learned to be critical, to show them where to improve. But I always try to sound positive and be encouraging at the same time.”
Balanced programme
As Kingston explains, there are lots of dynamics that go into fixing the programme of the festival. “One of them is actually the numbers of students involved. You don’t want a play with 15 students following a play with 15 students, because it’s just going to be logistically a mess. Or if there is a play that’ s clearly going to have a big set, what you want coming before or after that is a play that’s got two chairs and a table that can be moved quickly.”
But there also needs to be a balance in terms of themes and approach. Friday, for example, starts off quite lightly with a Lycée Michel Lucius doing Ian McWethy’s The Internet Is So Distract … Oh Look! A Kitten, followed by the International School of Luxembourg taking on Monsters, a play by Niklas Rådström, translated by Gabriella Berggren, about the killing of James Bulger.
Other plays on the programme range from a devised piece based on Treasure Island by the Lënster Lycée International School to Laura Lundgren Smith’s play Dark Road about a guard at the Ravensbrück concentration camp by the European School Kirchberg group. From extracts from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Lycée des Arts et Métiers to an original devised piece called Don’t Look Now that explores the pitfalls of modern courtship by St. George’s International School.
The full programme and ticket details can be found on the .