The third term is a busy one in the drama department with a seemingly endless stream of shows and creativity being performed around the university. Meanwhile Niamh Percy, a second year drama student has ambitiously set out to run a blog and team of writers to review every show performed. Arts and Lit Online spoke to her about her inspirations and hopes for the blog.
Can you outline the nature of Drama T3 please?
Every year, once we’ve finished our assessments, the drama department put on a festival of performance. Anyone in the department (and a few beyond that) can propose a show or get involved, either performing or on the production side of things! The festival is a celebration of talent with shows ranging from famous classic plays to student written and devised pieces! 2016 has possibly the busiest programme the festival has ever seen and there are over 70 shows running from Monday 9th May – Friday 10th June. T3 is a fantastic opportunity for students to try out their creative ideas without the pressure of assessment and is valuable experience for those wanting to enter the industry!
What made you first want to create the blog? Where did your inspiration come from?
I’d been thinking for a while about the nature of the T3 festival. Each play is only performed twice, just on one day and in the most cases, it then ceases to exist. This seemed such a shame to me and I wanted to find a way to document all the shows in one place. Filming them seemed to be too much work (and impossible for certain shows) so I thought that an online blog would be the way! Social media now reaches so many people and so much of the publicity for shows happens on Facebook that I thought an online platform would be the most effective.
Has blogging always been an interest of yours?
I have actually never had my own blog before (except one for an assessed project) so this is a new and exciting learning opportunity for me! I’ve always been interested in writing and as any of my friends could tell you, I love to organise and be in charge, so this seemed the perfect thing.
What are your hopes for the blog in the future?
I would love for the blog to continue year on year! Hopefully someone will take over the running of it next year when I leave and then pass it on from hand to hand each year. I think it will be a fantastic way to document each T3 and show outsiders just how amazing the Exeter drama department is!
T3 is a fantastic opportunity for students to try out their creative ideas without the pressure of assessment
What kind of impact do you hope to generate?
The blog is mainly aimed at drama students and people involved with the shows as a way for them to gain credit and recognition for their hard work. However if it helped people outside the department and even the university to see how much work everyone puts into these shows and how fantastic they are, that would be a bonus! On the statistics of the blog, it’s already telling me that people from both Australia and the States have read it and that makes me super excited!!
Because of the rapid nature of T3, is there a concern that those in production roles may fail to gain the recognition they deserve?
Last year’s festival placed much less emphasis on production roles whereas this year’s first years especially have been super keen! If you know me, you’ll know I’m a production person – I direct, I produce, I stage manage and do tech. I am very much focused on the production side. I hope that in people’s reviews they realise the hard work and importance of the production roles as I do.
Why should people read your blog?
To see what fantastically talented people there are in the department! And maybe persuade them to come along to a show or two…
The T3 blog can be accessed via the link below: https://thet3review.wordpress.com/