Creating SICK!

Devising week - August 2005
In August 2005 we brought seven students from schools and colleges across Islington together to help us cut down Moliere's The Hypochondriac. Shakira Kumrai, Fatma Cokgezici, Daniela Mangiapane, Anton Garneys, Sameera Haque, Hauk Pattison and Bryan Jurado spent a week of intensive workshops with Rebecca Manson Jones and the playwright Fin Kennedy, devising and re-writing a new version of the play especially for eleven year olds.

The final result (at that stage known only as The Hypochondriac: Cut Down) was performed in a rehearsed reading to an invited audience at the end of the week.
 

The next stage
Having seen The Hypochondriac: Cut Down performed, Rebecca and Fin took the script away and refined it ready for casting and rehearsals. The play gained a snappier title, 'SICK!', following a suggestion from teachers at one of our Teachers' Evenings.

In September we began auditions. The Hypochondriac had been transformed from a 2 hour farce set in seventeeth century France with 14 named characters to a 45 minute farce set in twenty-first century Islington with just 6 characters.

SICK! was eventually cast and it was rehearsed from September - October 2005. In late October it was performed to the Year Seven students from Highbury Grove School, Islington Arts and Media School and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Schools.  In all over 600 students saw one of three performances over the week.

Before coming to see the production all the students took part in hour-long introductory workshops led by a dedicated team of workshop leaders and facilitators.