Phoenix students gain places in the National Youth Theatre

No less than 3 Phoenix Senior students have gained places at the prestigious National Youth Theatre. Teddy Pope, Zach Martin and Max Jones will all be off to the University of Northampton for two weeks in early August to train with other talented young performers from all over the UK.

The first stage of the audition process involved the students having to record a two minute monologue of their choice which was sent to the National Theatre. Teddy, who chose Mark Anthony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar says he owes a lot to Phoenix Senior Tutor Theo Ancient. “Without his advice on delivering Shakespeare’s text I don’t think I’d have done so well” he said.

The second phase involved the students having to deliver their monologues over Zoom to an audition panel. Zach said the fact that they had been working online during lockdown really helped. “I was really nervous to start with” said Zach, “but then it just felt like a Phoenix session and it was really easy to deal with.”

Max also put his success down to the online zoom classes Phoenix delivered during lockdown. “We’d done so much acting over Zoom by the time call backs came round,” said Max.

Max and Zach joined Phoenix two years ago whilst Teddy has been training with Phoenix for over four years now, having appeared in pantomime as well as taking the role of Knuckles in our 2018 production of Bugsy Malone.

The boys can’t wait for their summer adventure to start. “We’re all really excited about it,” said Teddy. We’re excited for them too and know they’ll do Phoenix proud as they continue their theatrical journeys.