"Marrzipan aims to instill self-confidence, key life skills, and public speaking ability in a fun, relaxed manner, where children are encouraged to think ‘outside the box’, developing at their own artistic pace, under the reassuring knowledge that ‘there are no wrong answers’."
Marrzipan teaches children to believe in themselves and have a “can do” attitude. Confident students are challenged to reach their full potential, and may come up with their own extra lines to learn or given extra characters to portray – thus strengthening their skills. They may also take on a role as a mentor and learn leadership and directing skills.
Through carefully selected Marrzipan Drama games, students are chosen to lead their group or speak in front of the group, thus subtly getting them used to the idea of people “watching them” whilst talking/performing.
Students are never forced to perform. All Marrzipan Teachers are trained to help each individual student achieve their personal goals whether it is getting up on stage or feeling as though they may give it a go next time.
Lessons encourage children to be supportive towards other students, as well as being a polite audience member.
Marrzipan uses original scripts based on what children are excited about.
The scripts are written internally, meaning that if your child is set on being a pirate, your Marrzipan Teacher can make that dream come true. We perform to the parents and the school each term. This means that after a year with Marrzipan Drama, your child has stepped up in front of an audience and performed several times!
Although rehearsing is an essential part of the process, there is nothing like getting up on stage in front of an audience to get those tummy butterflies fluttering! Being in front of an audience is what increases confidence – that is why we perform as many times as possible at Marrzipan!
The above philosophy works wonderfully for both the shy and the outgoing students of Marrzipan. The already-confident ones thrive in front of an audience, and love nothing more than being the centre of attention - so getting to perform several times a year is a dream-come-true for them!
Likewise, those students that are still warming up to the idea of speaking to more than one person at a time have been given the opportunity to grow gradually. The first term, they may help with backstage and props – this involves stepping on to the stage to move chairs/tables around, but not actually having to look at the audience or speak. This should give them the confidence to take on a small performing role in the second term, either speaking as part of a group or just being on stage without any lines to worry about. By the third term, these students are normally confident enough for a small speaking role, and by the fourth term are surprising even themselves by how eager they are to perform. And so a Marrzipan star is born!