At Looe Community Academy we pride ourselves on our thriving Performing Arts ethos and all of the community events that we create. These include but are not limited to concerts, musicals, dance shows, art exhibitions and working with local primary schools. Below you will find links to a number of the many exciting opportunities that the Arts at the Academy can offer. 

The sun always shines… for Annie

The community of South East Cornwall was brought together for three evenings of first class entertainment as the talented students of Looe Community Academy performed this year’s school production of the eternally appealing musical “Annie”, from the book by Thomas Meehan with the stirring music of Charles Strouse and the timeless lyrics from Martin Charnin.  The performance was brought to Looe by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd. on behalf of Music Theatre International of New York.
With authentic costumes and period stage sets, every scene transformed modern day Looe in to 1930’s New York at the time of extreme poverty and desperation due to the Great Depression.
 
The months of dedication to after school and weekend rehearsals were rewarded by rapturous applause and standing ovations through every performance as the audience were taken on a journey that turned despair to hope and hope to happiness as little orphan Annie infectiously enthused everyone she met and inspired a troubled nation with her endless optimism.
The Academy was very pleased to host community members, including residents from nearby care homes who simply adored the show and the talented performers.  There was the traditional matinee performance for our local primary school pupils, who will of course be the Academy’s performers of tomorrow.
 
The Academy sends a massive thank you to all parents and carers of those students involved and to the director, choreographer, musicians, performers, backstage and technical crew, hair and make-up team and to those that helped with the refreshments, caretaking, ticket sales and hosting of this superb event; it was a real community effort.

Create Ed 2016

As well as the school hosting its own exhibition of work again the year, the very best products were selected to represent the school at the Create ED exhibition at Falmouth University.  This year’s entries came from Art, Graphic Products, Resistant Materials and Textiles and once again students from Looe produced an excellent range of artefacts both two dimensional and three dimensional.
An enormous range of talent was demonstrated with the items on display, these ranged from detailed and flamboyant artistic displays, dresses and clothing displayed on traditional tailor’s dummies, traditional furniture to cleverly designed barbeques and 2D and 3D models and prototypes.
The work from Looe school looked tremendous on display and clearly reflected the hard work and dedication from this year’s students and staff.

Toad of Toad Hall 2017

After a lot of hard work, Looe Community Academy presented their first performance of A.A Milne’s ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ to excited members of local primary schools on Tuesday 7 February. Two more evening performances followed on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9. All who saw it, were enthralled by the human-animal characters brought to life by the actors and dancers through the intricate script, movement sequences, costumes and make up.

Jacob Beswetherick reflected the many sides of Toad’s character masses of energy and comic timing, supported by a bouncy, sweet Mole (Eleanor Morozow), a tired, grumpy old Badger (George Ingham) and an ever-diplomatic Water Rat (Rebecca Jeavons). The supporting cast included a gang of weasels, stoats and ferrets and a visual feast of rabbits, squirrels, field mice, a fox, kingfisher and a duck.

Audiences were very surprised to learn that only a handful of the performers were from Key Stage 4, with many of the cast members appearing on stage for the very first time.  All were encouraged to perform better than they knew they could by Director Mrs C Turon and her dedicated team of staff and student dance leaders, assistant producer, stage and prop managers, costumiers, make-up artists, hair stylists and sound and lighting technicians.

Looe Music Festival 2017

On September 29th students from Looe Community Academy took the stage and performed their hearts out at Looe Music Festival. With a huge variety of performances ranging from solos, choirs, large ensembles and rock bands, the students showcased their incredible talent to a tent full of festival-goers!

'Looe Tide' - Looe Community Academy BTEC Drama Group

On the evening of Wednesday 31st January the BTEC drama group performed ‘Looe tide’ onstage at the Hall for Cornwall, Truro as their unit 2 performance exam piece. This was part of the Nick Darke showcase which many other Cornish schools and colleges also took part in. Inspired by an archived programme of a performance at their local theatre, Plymouth Theatre Royal, of 'Low Tide'. The BTEC Drama students combined sections of Nick Darke’s original script, exploring locals’ attitudes to tourists, with their own verbatim project looking at a coastal town closer to home, their very own Looe. After conducting on the street interviews in Looe and they used the soundbites as parts of their play’s dialogue and blended the two seamlessly. The BTEC Drama students found it an amazing experience to perform on a professional stage in front of a large audience. It was also a very special moment when Nick Darke’s widow spoke about how much the evening would have meant to him. Throughout their time there the staff at the Hall for Cornwall commented numerous times on how they conducted themselves in a professional and fully prepared way throughout.

High School Musical Jnr

From Tuesday 6th to Thursday 8th February Looe Community Academy filled their school stage with a passionate cast from years 7 to 11, for their fantastic production of ‘High School Musical Jr’. They wowed their audiences, firstly from the school’s feeder primaries followed by two very successful and much loved evening performances. Audiences were treated to the fact that every single member of the 50 strong cast, no matter their age, experience or role was ‘triple threat’ with them all singing, dancing and acting together.
Especially commissioned coloured t-shirts clearly set out the different cliques of jocks, cheerleaders, brainiacs, skaters and thespians as they performed full on song and dance numbers within a set of American bleachers (provided by Event Services), and projected backdrops of photographs of familiar places and people from around the school also set the scenes. Not only did many performers discover previously unconsidered talents by taking part in this show, but also many students and audience members were uplifted by the message that you don’t have to conform to a label and you can let your talents shine through.