SHOWSTOP THEATRE SCHOOL

There are few people who know more about children and performance than Jo Hawes. Originally a stage manager, she has been a casting director and children’s administrator for many years – working extensively for Cameron Mackintosh among others. “When theatres began to reopen this summer, I was, at one point, casting children for five different West End shows” she chuckles ruefully.

Veteran presenter of audition workshops – teaching children what they need to do and how to present themselves – all over the country, Jo has become acutely aware that many children need training in theatre skills. And the best people to do this, she believes, are successful, working professional performers rather than non-performing teachers.

So, last year, she started Showstop Theatre School in partnership with her son Matt Hawes and his partner Claire MacDonald. The timing wasn’t, with hindsight, great. They began with face-to-face classes in September 2020 but had to resort to Zoom as lockdown bit again. “Of course, Zoom isn’t the same, but we learned a lot about how to make the very best of it,” she says.

“But now – this term – Sunday morning classes are running again in a school in Maidenhead with everyone in the room”. Currently most of the participants are fairly local but Jo tells me that one boy came from Suffolk last year. “If we get applications from across the country, we shall look at further exploiting Zoom, which is a wonderful invention and improving all the time, in order to share it more widely” she says.

Classes are for a maximum of 25 children aged 7 to 14. “That way we don’t have to split them into age groups although as we expand we may use two rooms in order to do just that” says Jo. Each term comprises 10 weekly sessions. This term Jo is very hopeful that they will be able to end with a really enjoyable Christmas concert. “The one we’d planned last year had to be cancelled because of Covid rules so I really want to do it this time. The one thing everyone deserves this year, in my view, is a really cracking Christmas.”

Showstop School has various USPs. All the teaching is by top notch performers and there’s a different one every week. “My lead role in this is to book the providers because of the three of us I’m the one with the industry contacts,” says Jo explaining that each week is different because the threehour session plays to the strengths of the provider. “That’s really good for children too”, says Jo, “Because in the real world, whatever they do in the future, they will have to adapt to, and learn to work with, a wide range of different people.” Moreover, it enables a range of skills – circus and puppetry for instance – to be included.

It is, of course, unusual for children to be taught by industry ‘Names’ such as Lara Denning, Malinda Parris, Ryan Bennett and Mark Hedges although many full-time drama schools boast guest workshops at Higher Education level. Surely being an accomplished West End performer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good with children? “Indeed not” says Jo with a grin. “I choose very carefully and we pay them decently.”

This work is badged as “elite” training for children, so I wonder whether Jo and her colleagues are specifically aiming to prepare children for possible juvenile professional work or is the focus on general skills development? “Both” answers Jo. “There’s no difference between an ‘amateur’ child and a ‘professional’ child. Some will audition for shows and get work. Some of the children who come, are already known to me but many are not, and a lot of parents are simply looking for confidence building and, for example, the ability to communicate clearly.

And all that is part of the package.”

Jo also hopes that participating children will learn that there’s a lot more to theatre than performing and, maybe, be drawn to work in the industry as technicians, stage managers or other areas where there are major shortages. “I was thrilled, for example to hear one girl declare ‘I want to be a casting director like Jo’ because it meant that we really are getting the message across” says Jo.

Another aim of Showstop

Theatre School is to help to fill the gap now that so few maintained sector prioritise – or even include – drama in their curricular or extra curricular work. “It’s the same with music” says Jo, whose husband, Tim Hawes, is a professional trumpeter. “Where does anyone think the next generation of performers is going to come from if interest in these things doesn’t start at school?” Contact Jo Hawes: 01628 773048

07824 337222

Johawes.com

Joanne.hawes2013@gmail.com showstoptheatreschool.co.uk