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Helen O'Grady students compete against eachother in YOTV's game show Blom or Vaya!

16 of the Helen O'Grady Youth Theatre students from our Kensington and Sandton studios had great fun going on set of the SABC 1 YOTV game show "Blom or Vaya". The students paired up with their best friends and had to compete against another couple. The winners were the ones who knew their partner the best and  the couple who got the most points on the leader board were the over all winners. The first episode flights on Monday 16th September at 3.25pm - do be sure to watch it. There are 4 episodes .  More of our students will be going on the show later this month.

Long Walk to Freedom featuring 4 Helen O'Grady drama students has an 8 minute standing ovation at the Toronto film Festival !

The highly anticipated film "Long Walk to Freedom" made its debut at the Toronto film festival on Saturday. We are very proud of 4 of our drama students who played Nelson Mandela's children :



 


Sinakho Motsepe
Role : Tembi (Mendela's son age 6yrs)

Khumbuzile Maphumulo
Zeni(Mendela's daughter age 8 yrs)

Joshua Manana
Tembi (Mandela's son age 11yrs)

Refilwe Charles
Zinzi ( Mendela's daughter age 12 yrs).

 

All the children have been attending the drama academy for many years and are real stars in their own right! The casting director was very impressed with their performances and how well they took direction.

 

Check out the links from the press conference:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24006151

 

 

 Idris Elba  who play Mandela is tipped to be nominated for an Oscar. The film is due to be released in South Africa on 29th November 2103.

 

 

Helen O'Grady drama students feature in YOTV's Yo Hambo show on SABC 1!

Good friends, Ryan Naamdhew and Zithobe Hlongwane  from our  Kensington class had the time of their lives when YOTV took them rock climbing and filmed their amazing experience. The  show will be screened on Monday 5th August on SABC1 at 3.00pm .They will also be doing a live interview and then introduce the episode themselves. We  wish them all the luck!

Ryan was originally interviewed by YOTV at the drama class in Kensington which is held at The Kensington Tennis and Bowling club, Ivanhoe street, Kensington  on Thursdays. Drama is Ryan's passion and during his interview he was asked how the Helen O'Grady drama programme had benefitted him and what was so special about it ! His interview and some of the drama lesson were then shown on an episode of Yo Hambo earlier this year. Ryan and Zithobe have developed a really good friendship since attending the academy and they have been coming for years. They are both very talented actors and are part of our casting agency , Take10. Zithobe has been on quite  a few TV adverts, featured in the TV series "The Wild" and Leon Schusters "Boeti and the Beast."




Lower Primary classes wrap up warm for their first dress up this term!

Our lower primary classes (5- 8yrs) had great fun dressing up for their improvisation "The Super Snowman". Our improvisations give the children opportunities to be creative and imaginative - some of our children  had never seen snow so they had to imagine having snowball fights, making a snowman , sledging or even being a snow angel.
Our wonderful programme helps develops language and communication skills, self confidence and self esteem and above all is fun!

Sandton lower Primary

Kensington Lower Primary

Youth Theatre presentations have the parents in stitches!

All Our Youth Theatre classes (13-18yrs) impressed their parents with some fine performances with scripts, monologues, small group improvisations , theatre games and much much more! Our fantastic youth theatre programme gives the students an excellent platform  in performance skills should they wish to take acting as a career. It also helps them in public speaking, presentation skills and consequently it will  make them effective communicators. Above all ,our classes are great fun and they just keep coming!!

Edenvale YT Theatre- The Wedding



Sandton YT - Sherlock Holmes

Sandton YT- Consulting you inner conscience



Pantomime Blanche!

Kensington YT- The Wedding

Zarza Booda- The hunting is bad!

Benoni YT- Zarza Booda

Kempton Park YT- Doctor in The house

Cartoon Capers

The Importance of Being Ernest

Upper Primary classes present "The Legend of William Tell" !

Our Upper Primary classes (9-12 yrs) impressed their  parents with  a short structured scene based on "The Legend of William Tell'. This part of our fantastic programme teaches our students about performing on stage including miming skills, adlibbing, stage awareness, voice projection and character building. Our curriculum is also diverse and our students learn  about different cultures and periods of history through the media of drama, making it fun and interesting. The kids really enjoyed dressing up and getting into character with some great performances by our various William Tell's and Gessler- the Austrian tyrant!!

Benoni Upper Friday

Boksburg Upper Primary

Benoni Upper Primary Wednesday

Kempton Park Upper Primary

Sandton Upper Primary

Kensington Upper Primary

Sunninghill Upper A

Sunninghill Upper B