Page 46 - Phonebox Magazine May 2011

Small School... BIG Achievements! News from Emberton School
By THe Time you read this we will have had a “right royal celebration” at our playground party on Wednesday 27th april in honour of the Royal Wedding. Thank you very much to all of the parents who helped, together with FOeS and emberton Parish Council for donating money towards the festivities and commemorative gifts. Photos will be in next month’s issue!
We held our traditional mothers Day assembly where we sang lots of lovely songs and recited our own poems for our audience of mums, before
presenting them with
spring pansies and
homemade cards. FOeS organised a mother’s Day Raffle and a Scavenger Hunt where the children enjoyed searching for signs of Spring around emberton Park. Both activities were great for boosting funds for our school trips.
We are well into our
Creative Partnership
project with Sherington and St andrews Schools. The children have been busy writing stories, inventing characters, producing artwork and generally having a great time with yaw asiyama our visiting artist. you are welcome to come and watch the 3- school finale production on the school field on Friday 13th may from around 1pm – watch out for a poster with more exact times.
if you would like your child to attend a rural school with small class sizes, we still have places available for September 2011. Contact us on 01234 711518 and we would be delighted to show you around.
EX WEST END PERFORMER RETURNS
TO ‘CENTRE STAGE’
Hi my name is Jo Wood and my family have lived in the beautiful market town of Olney for the last 11 years. in 2000 we found Olney by chance because we wanted to move out of London, to give our children a more rural upbringing.
i moved to London from the Wirral after training in all aspects of dance at the Hylton Bromley School of dance on merseyside, winning the same final award as ‘nasty’ nigel Lythgoe, as he was a former student.
my Dancing career initially took me to Greece, Korea, italy and Portugal, where i danced in a small cabaret group. This experience was rewarding but opened my eyes to some of the pitfalls of ‘Showbiz’, grotty digs, grotty venues and grotty punters!
On my return to the UK i auditioned for the Premier national tour of Cats, where i was lucky enough to be offered the part of Cassandra. i spent the next 15 months touring the UK playing large venues in edinburgh, Blackpool and Dublin.
On returning to London, i auditioned for the West end production at the new London Theatre and no-one was more surprised than i, when i was asked to understudy the lead roll of Bomballurina. i could unpack my suitcase at last but stress levels were running at an all time high!
i performed my understudy many times but believe me before the first, i was physically sick before going on. During my time in the
West end i appeared in many charity shows and danced in the Royal Variety show and Olivier awards 1992.
12 months later and back on the road up to Sheffield where i played ‘Texas’ in the musical ‘Cabaret’ starring andy Serkis (Gollum in Lord of the Rings),before returning to London for another spell in ‘Cats’
The next show i auditioned for was the new George Gershwin musical ‘Crazy For you’ at the Prince edward Theatre, which was to be a major turning point in my life.
i was offered the part of ‘Betsy’ who played opposite a character called ‘moose’.
Our on stage relationship developed into more and ‘moose’ ended up becoming my husband David. We remained in the same show together for 3 years until our next production, daughter Charlotte, came along.
i love living in Olney and as our three children are getting older i appreciate everything this community has to offer.
The children are now at the age where i can pursue my love of dance through teaching and have just been offered the position of Head of Dance at ‘CentreStage Theatre School mK’. This is the theatre school in milton Keynes run by ex mamma mia! West end director, Peter addis and his wife Jacqueline who has also appeared in many West end shows.
i am really looking forward to sharing my love of Theatre and Dance with their students.
46 Phonebox Magazine
Jo Wood