Platform is born

We are proud of our co-curricular activities at Habs, and drama lies right in the heart of it. We do whatever we can to nurture and develop students’ interests in the arts and give them ownership to produce their own work, which is why we developed a new initiative called Platform. This initiative gives students the opportunity to propose a play, event or project to put on independently. By doing so, students are able to tap into their creativity, curiosity, ambition and their community.

Every term, we provide the space and support to either put on or test out an idea. This could be a full play, a reading of new writing, a scratch performance, open mic session, poetry reading, film screening, dance show or whatever else our students are interested in exploring. This space allows students to experiment with ideas and be creative in their own right – to collaborate with others and put work in front of an audience, without the pressure of it having to be finished or perfect!

Evaluation and reflection are also key parts of this process, to allow students to critically challenge their work and develop as artists and producers. These skills will help our students not only in their artistic development, but also in their personal development.

Toby (SFM1) shares his experience of using Platform and creating his own play.

Writing and directing my own play by Toby (SFM1)

On 2 April 2025, I was lucky enough to present my own play to a packed Lime Tree Studio audience.

Writing, rehearsing, directing and acting in a play, and putting it on at school was the most amazing experience. Getting to that final performance though? Let’s just say that the journey was not always smooth. Here is the story of my play, and the valuable lessons I learned along the way.

The idea for “Descent” came from an interesting personal issue: a distant family member moved away, following marital disharmony, threatening to dissociate from other members of the family much closer to me. I wanted to experiment by taking this idea further, seeing what would happen if a family was placed in an ever increasing, pressure cooker-type environment: what kind of questions would arise? Would those questions have any answers?

The biggest challenge I faced was getting my five initial choices of actors in a room to begin rehearsals. Conflicting timetables were not fun to navigate. Once I had overcome that issue, I was forced to watch people I thought I could depend on, drop out for various (undoubtedly, genuine) reasons, right up until a point just a few weeks before the production was due.

I was determined to keep moving because if I lost momentum, I knew it would only be harder to start again. Finally, I decided to approach people I felt would be tailor made to each role.

I was able to bring together four brilliant actors in Dean (SFR3), Theo (SFM1), Victor (10J1) and Yasmin (L6 PW) to bring the show to life. After this, a kind of snowball effect started and help started to come from unexpected places, such as lighting designer Maks (9M1), and poster designer Miriam (L6 CS).

With top-level support from Mr Weinman and Mr Hammond, the production began to take shape, with tech rehearsals starting the week before the performance. It was thrilling to see my piece come to life, from first ideas and words on a page to actors provoking an emotional impact on the stage.

This is what Habs Platform is all about: putting drama work out there and developing it, reworking it and being adventurous with the space that you have. Through a combination of charitable contributions and proceeds from snack sales on the night, the production raised over £400 for North London Hospice charity.

The support I received from teachers and students alike was heartening and sometimes came from the most unexpected places. I took three key lessons away from the entire process.

First: nobody will tell you to get started. There is no perfect way of beginning a project like this. The main thing is you have to throw yourself in, maintaining focus, drive and positivity. It may be a cliche but the truth is that if you believe in it, then it really can happen.

Second: you have to treat your project like your best friend. Just as you never speak badly about your best friend to other people, you cannot be seen to lack faith in your own project. If you do, other people will lack faith in it too.

Third: help can come from some pretty unexpected places. That is both a tribute to the culture at Habs, and the drive to help out for a good cause.

I would like to thank Mr Weinman, Mr Hammond, the cast and crew, and all the family and friends for coming to watch and support during the whole process.

Platform is an initiative allowing students to write material, bring new ideas, and test their own skill in drama in a bid to make drama at Habs more accessible to everyone, enhancing creativity and bravery on the stage. I thoroughly enjoyed trying my hand at this – I urge anyone else who is interested to do the same!

Congratulations to Toby for his stellar effort in putting together a phenomenal performance!