Dr Isabelle Gatt, lecturer at the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education, directs an adaption of Sophocles’ Antigone with students from the Malta Visual and Performing Arts (MVPA) school.
The MVPA was one of six schools taking part in this year’s children’s national theatre festival Trikki Trakki 2022 at the end of March, organised by Teatru Malta. Through this unique Festival, students have the opportunity of being directed by leading theatre practitioners to produce new adaptations of popular theatre classics. Isabelle Gatt has been chosen to be one of the Trikki Trakki directors in four of the five festivals so far.
“Antigone can be a tough tragedy to work on with eleven-year-olds. Finding ways of making ancient drama relevant to the young actors through the language, music and style chosen can be both a challenging as well as fun process. I worked through my ideation concepts of Antigone in steampunk style with Malcolm Galea, the script writer, and Isabel Warrington, the costumes and props designer. The steampunk props and costumes were made from recycled materials, in line with the festival philosophy. Theatre is all about collaboration with other professionals. I was also lucky to have Karl Cassar, the school drama teacher on board. I find that working on projects with schools is key to my lecturing in teacher formation at University. It keeps me in touch with schools, young people and makes me aware of the challenges teachers face in teaching today’s youth, more so, in delivering drama lessons and rehearsals with the Covid-19 restrictions as in social distancing and with Anti-Viral Protection Masks on.” says Dr Gatt.
Isabelle runs the Master’s in teaching and learning (MTL) in Drama and Theatre Education, the study units in Creativity and the Arts for the MTL Primary and B.A. ECEC. as well as Applied theatre in Adult education.