For the first time ever, our TY students had an amazing opportunity to be in a play with TY students from C.U.S.  The play was a stage adaptation of the tense courtroom drama 12 Angry Men, with the title changed to 12 Angry Jurors. In January, auditions were held individually with Ms O’Reilly and then with the CUS boys and at the end of January we were offered our roles. I was given the opportunity to play Juror No. 11, and 5 other TY’s from Loreto were also offered roles; Muireann Emerson, Maebh O’Donovan, Brigid Moorhouse, Eloise Broderick and Ríona O’Connell.

The play was directed by Mr Conway, a teacher from CUS, and there were 2 assistant directors including Sophie Sheeran. There were 6 boys from CUS playing the remaining jurors with 3 understudies. We were supported by a stage crew which included C.U.S students and Ruby King, with Grace Curry taking the role of photographer.

We began the rehearsal process in March, with rehearsals once a week until Easter break, and after that we ramped up rehearsals to ensure we were ready for our performances in the middle of May. The rehearsals were lots of fun, and it was great to improve our acting skills, as 12 Angry Jurors is a challenging piece.

We had 5 performances for a range of audiences including our very own Loreto TY’s. There were plenty of first performance nerves, but we all did an excellent job and continued this throughout the week, with strong performances given every night. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the 12 Angry Jurors cast! It was another great opportunity in TY to meet new people and make new friends, whilst doing something I love, and I know it was also a great experience for the rest of the cast and crew. Hopefully this will become a new tradition for Loreto and C.U.S TY’s in the future.