On May 16th 2017, Fourth Class received a Creative Schools award for their 20 minute Promenade Theatre production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. This involved students performing five scenes not on a stage but in five different locations (outdoors and indoors) around the school. The invited audience followed the actors as they performed the street fight scene in Verona in the Infants yard, the Masquerade Ball in the school hall, the Balcony Scene at the outdoor railings, to the Friary in an alcove in a doorway, to another street fight in the main school yard, to the Capulet House in the school hall to the final Crypt scene staged in the school poly tunnel. This Drama project was co-ordinated by Helen Ni Ailiosa.
The second phase of this integrated arts project was co-ordinated by Fourth Class teacher Margo Ni Shuilleabhain. This involved the creation of a series of collaborative pastel pictures depicting the characters and action in each of the five scenes. This beautiful, ‘romantic’ Visual Arts display was exhibited at the Award Ceremony in ‘The Ark’.
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The distinguished classical pianist John O’ Connor presented the award and was charmed by Fourth class Valerie when, dressed as Juliet, presented him with a rose, quoting from the play ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. This Creative Schools Award is one of a number of initiatives hosted by the ACAE (Association for Arts and Creativity in Education) which directly promotes and nurtures creativity in the classroom.
This year, the Association for Arts and Creativity in Education invited eight previous award-winning schools to showcase their high standard of creative work. Scoil Mhuire was one of these eight and on the day ‘stole the show’ (Ger O’ Sé, founding member of ACAE)
