Performance of 'Find Your Spark'

23rd June 2023
On Friday 23rd June, Mrs Ford brought Will and Holly from Corkscrew Theatre Company to perform 'Find Your Spark', a play written for children about the life and work of Jeremiah Horrocks.  The Year 5 and 6 classes watched the play and came up with lots of interesting questions, which Will and Holly answered - see their answers below.
 
Jeremiah Horrocks was a young astronomer whose work is now seen to have been ahead of his time.  He came to Cambridge University as a young man, which was very unusual in that he came from a poor family and had to work whilst at college to support himself.
 
Thanks to Arts Council funding, there was no charge to the school for this performance, which is a wonderful treat!

WILL’S ANSWERS

 

  • What productions did Will and Holly do when they were at school? Where did you get the props from?

I played Curly in Oklahoma at Arbury in 2007. There might be photos somewhere! Although technically I was a firefly in Year 1 first… I also did GCSE and A Level Drama, so had to do a lot for those too! Being in a play or musical is a great way to meet friends, be silly, have fun, and get a good feeling when you’ve done a good job! We made most of the props ourselves or found suitable things we could use. Luckily the last couple of plays we did also involved telescopes so we had plenty of those! We found lots of astronomy books and papers that we had to create the rest of the set to make it feel like you were in the room with Jess and Jeremiah. 

  • How come the one comet won’t be seen again?

Comets are massive balls of ice flying through space. Sometimes if they get too close to a star like our sun, they start to burn up and glow which is how we see them. Comet Africano came really close to our Sun in late 2018 and its green glow could be seen for a good few months as it flew past! But the gravity of the sun acted like a slingshot and threw it back out into space! It’s currently somewhere between the orbit of Jupiter and Saturn, but probably is going too fast to be pulled back to the sun. It will just keep flying forever until it finds another star to swing from, smashes into something, or burns up! 

  • Why did you decide to act in this play? Why was this play based on Jeremiah Horrox?

Our friend David wrote the main play about Horrox because not many people have heard about him, but he made so many important discoveries! A lot of the science today wouldn’t be around either, because many other like Isaac Newton used Horrox’s work to help their discoveries. We put the play on at the ADC Theatre in March. We were so inspired by the story, we decided to do a project about Horrox for a younger audience too! I was really thrilled to be able to tell his and Jess’ story and hopefully get some people interested in astronomy, philosophy, and maybe theatre! 

  • How long did it take for you to learn your lines? Do you know why Jeremiah didn’t graduate from Cambridge? Where did the name for the play come from?

It took me about a month to learn all the lines. I had to read the script all the time and test myself a lot, but eventually you can memorise the whole thing! Jeremiah didn’t graduate Cambridge because he felt his family needed his help back home so he couldn’t stay any longer. He didn’t mind though as he’d apparently learned everything he needed to and read all the books in the library! The name Find Your Spark wasn’t the first title of the play, we eventually decided that was the best one because it refers to an important line in the play and the whole message that everyone has a spark of some sort they can find to inspire them to do what their passionate about!

  • Have you been in other productions? If so, what were they?

I’ve been in lots of other productions! I don’t think I could quite name them all, but there’s been funny plays, scary plays, happy plays, sad plays, Shakespeare plays, outdoor plays, pantomimes, musicals and puppetry! I really enjoy doing new and different things and trying things I haven’t done before. You can always learn something!

  • How many pages were in the script?

I think there were about 30 pages in the script. But it takes a while to get through one page once you’re on stage! Holly reckons it adds up to about 300 lines each! 

  • Were you interested in astrology before you did this play?

There’s a big difference between astrology and astronomy, as Horrox would tell you! Astronomy is the study of the universe, stars, planets and galaxies etc. Whereas astrology is more of a spiritual practice that believes alignment of planets and positions of stars can have an impact on our lives and predict what happens on earth. I’ve been interested in astronomy from a young age and doing this project has sparked that back up! Lots of people still practice astrology too, although it’s a lot harder to prove right! 

  • Did you know all the facts before reading the script?

I luckily knew some of the facts from doing the main Horrox play a few months ago. But I still learned a lot more from doing this about the history of astronomy as a whole as well as Horrox’s story. I really enjoyed getting to find out what was discovered since Horrox was alive and how amazed he must have been if he was able to know how far his discoveries have led future scientists. 

  • How long did it take you to rehearse the whole play?

Once we learned the lines it actually didn’t take long at all! We had a few days practicing and running it a few times to know where we were going and when. But the whole process of writing, learning and making the play took about 2 months!

  • Have you ever used a real telescope before?

I’ve used a few not very good telescopes! But apparently they were better quality than Galileo’s first one! I do remember going to a stargazing event at the Institute of Astronomy on Madingley Road when I was a kid and getting to look at Jupiter really close through the telescope in their big dome observatory. 

 

 

HOLLY’S ANSWERS

  • What productions did Will and Holly do when they were at school? Where did you get the props from?

My big year 6 production was ‘Oliver’, where I played Nancy and then I did lots of things at secondary school, mostly musicals including ‘Into the Woods’, ‘Copacabana’, ‘Grease’, ‘We Will Rock you’ and ‘The Odyssey’- which was a musical written by my music teacher which we took to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

 

  • Why did you decide to act in this play?

I decided to act in the play because I love working with Corkscrew Theatre. Will and I have done lots of shows together, but never just with the two of us, so I thought it would be really exciting to do that too. I also think the story of Jeremiah Horrox is really important and deserves to be told. 

 

  • How long did it take for you to learn your lines? 

It took a few weeks to learn the lines, I kept adding a few pages every day and then Will and I met on Zoom and said the lines over and over again until we knew them. 

 

  • Have you been in other productions? If so, what were they?

I have been in many productions (too many to name them all here) and since I’ve been a professional actor, I have worked in everything from children’s theatre to Shakespeare. Out of all the roles I’ve played, my favourites are Mrs Lovett in ‘Sweeney Todd’ and Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. I’ve done many shows with Corkscrew, and most recently starred as Alina in ‘Father Frost’ at the Town and Gown in Cambridge. 

 

  • Were you interested in astrology before you did this play?

I don’t really like astrology, but I am a Capricorn, just like Jess is in the play. I did like science at school but doing this play has made me really interested in astronomy now! 

 

  • Did you know all the facts before reading the script?

No, I learnt so much from the script, it’s packed full of interesting facts!