IB Theatre 10 Brings GNS Wartime History to Life for Remembrance Day

This year’s Remembrance Day assemblies featured a powerful performance by my IB Theatre 10 class. As part of their unit on Verbatim Theatre, students researched, wrote, and staged an original piece that explored what life was like for students at Glenlyon and Norfolk House during times of war.

A Lesson in Authentic Voices

The project was the culmination of our “Verbatim Theatre” Unit of Inquiry. Verbatim Theatre is a form of documentary theatre where a play is constructed using the precise, real words of people interviewed about a specific event or topic.

Our guiding Statement of Inquiry for the unit was to “communicate authentic representations of diverse identities and relationships, challenging themselves to engage with real-world perspectives and experiences.”

To begin, I had the students study how professional artists capture real-life voices to illuminate an issue. After they investigated and presented on various theatre companies, I tasked them with creating their own piece for the assembly.

Uncovering Our Own History

My students chose to focus on GNS’s own history. To do this, they met twice with School Archivist, Mr. Stuart Brambley, who led them through an exploration of the school’s archive materials. It was fantastic to see them dive into the records, gathering notes, photos, and documenting the different perspectives they found.

From this rich research, each student adopted a unique viewpoint (a student, teacher, parent or veteran) and wrote their part of the performance. The final piece wove together historical context with the poignant voices of school founders Ian Simpson and Dora Atkins. It also captured the imagined voices of students missing family overseas and expressed gratitude to the teachers and family members who served.

The audience learned about Glenlyon founder Major Ian Simpson, who was awarded a Military Cross in WWI before founding the school. During WWII, “he helped students in Europe and Singapore by inviting them to the school as an escape” while his own students “supported the war effort by making posters… and preparing care packages for the troops.”

The performance also gave a voice to the students at Norfolk House. One student, performing as prefect Rosemary James, read a letter to the crew of the HMCS Restigouche:

“My name is Rosemary James, a prefect at Norfolk House School… After weeks of fundraising, me and my peers at the school have collected enough supplies to send you large parcels of knitted articles, 20 pounds of candy, many bundles of magazines, four large cakes and boxes of holly. Me and my classmates are wishing you strength and courage through these times.”Perhaps most powerfully, the piece shared the stories of students who escaped the war, such as Iva Lisicka from Czechoslovakia. She arrived in Victoria in 1940 and described a harrowing incident on her journey by sea:

“We left the docks on August 16th 1940… In the evening… I heard a loud boom! … In the morning, however, we heard that our ship was attacked and had sunk a German submarine the previous evening with two depth charges.”

A Message of Sincerity and Hope

The students took full ownership of the staging, designing the format of the presentation using simple movement and historical images from their research.

As their teacher, I was most impressed by their stated artistic intention: to perform with sincerity and respect. They told me they wanted their audience to learn more about GNS’s history and to foster empathy for those involved. The students also identified that they wanted to create an engaging performance for the audience and convey that GNS cares for students through a solemn yet inspirational message of hope.

They truly embraced the challenge of this unit, and I could not be more proud of the respectful and engaging performance they created.