Drama Club
Teachers-in-charge
Ms. Ashini Fernando
Ms. Madusha Fernando
Committee
- Yanushi de Mel (President)
- Anah Cassim (Vice-President)
- Ginuri Ranasinghe (Secretary)
- Sarah Hashim (Treasurer)
Introduction
Bishop’s College has been known for its theatrics since the 1800s. The students have performed various plays and won several competitions over the years. The Drama Club aims to provide a stage for those who are interested in pursuing their love for theatre. It also creates a learning opportunity for the students to learn the art of performing, by conducting various workshops. The passion for drama continues to grow among the students of Bishop's College as the years go by.
Origin
Bishop’s College has been famous for Drama Perfomances since 1898, over the years the students have participated in many shows and competitions. It started off with drama classes, afterwards the Drama Society was part of the English Literary Association and then subsequently it broke away and they formulated a separate society.
Drama has been such an integral part at Bishop’s College. Our pioneer directress was Irene Wanigaratne. Our first Shakespeare victory was in 1980, the school won the scenes from “The Merry Wives of Windsor” with Yasmin Adamally winning the award for the Best Actress.
- Ms. Irene Wanigaratne
Notable Achievements
1916: A student of Bishops College, Phyllis Daniel won the scholarship for senior drama awarded by the Trinity College of Music.
2001: The Bishopians emerged champions in the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition under the direction of Ms. Irene Wanigaratne. ‘Shashikala Jayasinghe’ was awarded Best Actress.
2002: Bishop’s College once again won the All Island Inter School Shakespeare Drama Competition directed under Ms. Irene Wanigaratne. ‘Shashikala Jayasinghe’ once again was awarded Best Actress.
2003: Bishop’s College emerged first runner-up for their performance of “Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition. ‘Anjuli Gunaratne’ won Best Supporting Actress. The play was directed by Ms. Irene Wanigaratne, Mrs. Claire Silva and Mrs. Nafeesa Amirudeen.
2004: In the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition, Bishop’s College emerged champions for their performance of “Taming of the Shrew”. The directing was done by a past pupil of the college Nihla Zarook and it was produced by Mrs. Claire de Silva.
2006: Bishop’s College took part in the Interschool Shakespeare Drama Competition and emerged champions. Oshadi Welegama was awarded the title of ‘Best Actress’ for her performance of “Juliet” in “Romeo and Juliet” at the competition.
2007: While the cast of Bishop’s College was unable to secure a place in the finals at the Inter-school Shakespeare Drama Competition, Celina Camer was nominated for ‘Best Actress’ for her role as “Caliban” in the play “The Tempest”.
2009: At the Inter-School Drama Competition organized by the Interact Club of Royal College, Bishop’s College emerged first runner-up and the backstage crew was awarded the shield for ‘Best Stage Management’. Minuri Dissanayake won ‘Best Supporting actress’ for her role as “Mary” in “King Arthur’s Socks”.
2012: Bishop’s College took part in the Interschool Shakespeare Drama competition once again after a five-year-long break. The cast emerged first runner-up and Keshya Ranatunga was awarded ‘Best Actress’ for her role as “Juliet” in the play “Romeo and Juliet”.
2013: Bishop’s College emerged runner-up in the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition for their performance of “Merchant of Venice”.
2014: For their performance of “Merry Wives of Windsor”, Bishop’s College was one of four schools to get into the finals at the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama competition.
2015: Bishop’s College was placed second runner-up for their performance of “Love’s Labor’s Lost” at the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama competition. For her role of “Lord Berowne”, Shawnae Algama was awarded ‘Best Actress’ and 3 others were nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actress’. With a total of 4 nominations, Bishop’s College set a record for the highest number of nominations received by one school in the competition. The play was directed by Javin Thomas, Lehan Thomas, Amaya Wijesinghe and Shazad Synon.
2017: Bishop’s College performed “Coriolanus” at the Inter-school Shakespeare Drama Competition and although they could not secure a place in the finals, they did win ‘Best stage craft’ which was a first in the history of Bishop’s College. Kavya DeSilva and Shania Klyn were nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actress’. The play was under the direction of Javin Thomas, Lehan Thomas, Amaya Wijesinghe and Shazad Synon.
2018: After 12 long years, Bishop’s College emerged victorious at the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition for their performance of “King Lear” under the direction of Javin Thomas, Lehan Thomas, Amaya Wijesinghe and Shazad Synon. Raaedha Faizel, for her performance as “King Lear”, and Luxmi Wijeyananthan, for her role as “The Fool”, won ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ respectively.
2019: Bishop’s College emerged champions at the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition for their performance of “Romeo and Juliet”, making them back-to-back champions. For her role as “Juliet”, Anjuli Mahinkanda was nominated for ‘Best Actress’ and Raaedha Faizel won ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for her role as “The Nurse”. The directors for this play were Javin Thomas, Lehan Thomas, Amaya Wijesinghe and Shazad Synon.
Major Events
Drama has been a very important co-curricular in Bishop’s College since the 1800s. During the first few years, they performed a few small plays such as “The Magic Glass”, “Piped Piper”, “Cinderella” and “Beauty and the Beast”. The first Shakespearean drama was performed in July 1913 with a production of “Macbeth” to a full house.
During the 1900s the following dramas were performed:
- A production of “Julius Ceaser” was performed in August 1916.
- Between 1930 and 1940, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” directed by Ms. Linda Modder was performed.
- In October 1937, the operetta “Princess Ju-Ju” was presented with student Irene Edirisinghe (now Irene Wanigaratne ) taking the lead role.
- During the 1970s, The kindergarten performed “Red Riding Hood”, “Blackbird Pie”, “Thumbelina”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Sleeping Beauty”.
- In February 1983 “Jane Eyre” was produced with a cast of 31 students.
- In 1984, A. P. Herbert’s “Bless the Bride” was staged with a cast of 75 students.
- In March 1985, Bishop’s College and St Thomas’s College Mt Lavinia jointly presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera “The Gondoliers”.
- Roger’s and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” was produced as a second joint production with St Thomas’s College Mt Lavinia in February 1994.
2011
Performed “Anne of Green Gables” on the 6th and 7th of March 2011 at the BC Auditorium. The cast consisted of more than 50 members of students from gr 4 – 14.
2012
5th April 2012- Students performed “Dear Departed” by Stanley Houghton at the Annual Inter school drama competition organized by the Interact Club of Royal College
2016
The Drama Club launched the initiative Theatre 360: A Step into the World of Theatre. The 01st workshop organized under this initiative was An Introduction to Acting conducted by Mr Jake Oorloff. On the 30th of July a workshop on Voice and Movement was conducted by Ms. Ruhanie Perera and was followed by a workshop on Stage Management by Mr Channa Wijesuriya. On the 13th of September a workshop was conducted by Ms. Tehani Chetty.
The last workshop in the series regarding Make up was conducted by Mr Rajeev Colton.
2017
4th April – A few select senior members of the club were taken on a private tour of the Lionel Wendt theatre. (Provided students with an inside view of the inticraties that take place behind the scenes of any production.
The Drama club of Bishop’s College was featured in the Daily News Paper under the title “Stage of Creativity”. The article highlighted the history of drama within the school and emphasized the high standard and the high standard and quality expected from BC drama.
https://dailynews.lk/2017/04/28/features/114352/stage-creativity
A cast consisting of 5 members took part in the Annual Inter-school drama competition organized by Royal College. An interesting factor about the experience was that the took on the challenge of directing themselves in order to explore other avenues of theatre. Eleesha Munasinghe and Anjuli Mahinkanda led the direction and production of the play “Anna, Alone”.
On the 16th of June a drama workshop was conducted for students from grade 08 and above by Ms. Tracy and Ms. Ashini. It focused on the basics in movement and working together as a team and served as a pre-audition for shakes.
A select number of drama enthusiasts from the club participated in the “Power of One” workshop which was conducted by Mr Jehan Aloysius, the cast and crew of “Rag”, and Centre Stage Productions Team.
It involved a small group of students from various schools and was based on themes of anti-ragging, and anti-bullying. The objective of the workshop was to use drama and theatre as a platform in bringing awareness to such issues and to create a sense of unity amongst victims of bullying.
2018
A few select members of the club were fortunate to watch a preview of the “Sound of Music” organized by Cinnamon Life in February.
On the 6th of June a workshop was held by Grass rooted Trust on the theme to be focused on at the Inter-house Drama competition, “Bullying”.
The board of the Drama Society, along with the teachers-in-charge attended “Consent and Complicity” produced by Mind Adventures Theatre Company and directed by Tracy Holsinger on the 20th of June. It was held at the University of Visual and Performing Arts Colombo.
The inter- house drama competition was held on the 29th of October on the theme “Bullying”.
2019
Members of the club were to perform the play “The Other Room” depicting the inside mind of an Autistic child. Directed by Rashmi Dias for the Annual Inter School Drama Competition organized by Royal College. However, the cast was unable to take part due to unavoidable circumstances, but they did perform the play for the general assembly on the 1st of July.
2021
This year the drama Drama Club will be organizing a series of workshops to help students realise, learn and improve their skills in Drama. We would like to provide the students the tools necessary to find the confidence to their own creativity in this new area of “virtual performance”. Therefore we will be conducting five workshops during the month of August. They will be conducted by Mr. Shuaib Jabbar, Mr. Lihan Mendis, Mr. Ruvin De Silva, and Mr. Rajeev Colton Wickremaratna.
We will be organizing a virtual inter-house drama competition for the year 2021. This competition will be based on a short film presented by each house.
Gallery
2019
The Shakespeare Competition Performance
