Truro College's Trucco Theatre Group have just returned from their three-week trip Cadiz in Spain where they performed to packed audiences!

The three-week trip has given the students some fantastic memories, which they are never likely to forget.

The trip was split into three main activities, in the first week the students delivered a full programme of dance and drama workshops to Spanish School pupils.

The group had spent some time preparing this in England, even learning Spanish, and this paid off when they found that the pupils were extremely receptive to the work and took part with great enthusiasm.

Student Jenna Mayes in full flow

The culmination of the workshops was scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, which the students performed in Spanish. Course tutor Derek Ross acted as Director and interpreter for the workshop as many of the pupils did not know much English and the Trucco students are not yet fluent despite their efforts!

Truccos Spanish Hosts the Fundacion Municipal de Cultura, Ayuntamiento De Cadiz (Department of Culture in Cadiz City Council) set up a press conference at which Antonio Castillo, head of the Department of Culture gave a detailed description of the Project for the local press.

The Students then had to busy themselves with rehearsals for A Midsummer's Night Dream. Trucco had already successfully performed the play outside Truro Cathedral, but they were now joined by Fernando Campillo in the role of Director, he worked with the students on how they could improve the play to make it more accessible to the Spanish audiences.

Capturing Trucco's production in action

Rehearsals for the open air play took place in a School playground and the students suffered a little from the extreme Spanish heat, especially since a number of the performers where wearing Wellie Boots!

The Performance took place in the Cadiz's Plaza de La Cathedral (Cathedral Square) where the 400-seat auditorium had been built overnight.

As the cast waited in the wing they noticed that people were queued up outside the auditorium waiting to get in, they estimated that there were 650 to 700 people watching, who filled up the seated capacity and the Cathedral steps behind!

To unwind in their final week the students took part in some extremely enjoyable (but tiring!) Flamenco lessons with a Flamenco Academy. They rounded off their trip with a cultural trip to Seville and the sixteen months of planning finally came to an end, leaving an exhausted but happy group of exceptional performers!