Lucy's blog

As Principal of a drama school, I'm asked this question a lot. And I could write a book on the many reasons why drama is so excellent - not just good - for children. But for this blog post, I'll focus on just one benefit; and that's the improvement drama can...

  I found this blog post last night written by film director Ben Gregor (yes – I know it was written last year, but better late than never!). The full article is well worth reading, but let me share the first paragraph with you...

My last post about why drama is beneficial prompted some parents to comment on the positive impact attending Perform classes has had on their children. While it's great to receive that feedback, it made me think more about how that positive impact affects us throughout our...

I am normally quite a talkative person but even I was rendered speechless when I read this article about some of the many ?Curriculum Cleansing' changes that Michael Gove is planning. For example, currently all GCSE students have to study English by either taking...

OK, I'm going to come clean. I have a guilty pleasure...and that's the new Disney cartoon Sofia the First. If you haven't seen it, it's a series about a young girl whose mother marries the King and therefore becomes Royal overnight. The episodes are based...

Careful the things you say. Children will listen. Forgive me quoting one of my favourite Stephen Sondheim songs from Into the Woods but these are wise lyrics and I do think that we should be extremely careful about what we say. Children really do listen, and they listen to...

Here at Perform, we often get contacted by casting directors asking if we can provide them children for auditions. They are generally surprised when we tell them that we that this is not something we do and we don't have a theatrical agency attached to our...

When I first started Perform, one of my friends told me that ?staff would be my biggest problem?. She had her own business and said that finding the right people was her main challenge. In many ways, she was right. It is continual challenge to keep recruiting brilliant...

Two years ago, I offered my friend a free place at Perform for her son who had just turned 4 years old. She thanked me but declined saying ?He's not a performing sort of a boy but I'm sure his sister will enjoy it when she's old enough, she's really confident...

It's the Easter holidays and I'm often asked if this is a nice quiet time for me at Perform. Well, it's definitely quiet in the sense that we only have our holiday workshops running and not our normal workshops, but actually the holidays are probably my busiest...