Robinson Academy of Drama Third Reel

2025 Term 3 News

We hope you all had a happy holidays and Christmas period and we look forward to starting back to a new year of drama fun and performances in 2025!
We wish all our students and their families a happy, healthy, safe, peaceful and calm new year!
We look back to the end of last year 2024, and celebrate the wonderful performances from the last term of ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and ‘Oliver’. Huge congratulations to all our students involved in both these beautiful productions!
We now look ahead to this years events! Starting with LAMDA exams on the 8th February and followed by our National Theatre Connections play ‘Mia and the Fish’ on March 29th at 2pm and 6pm at the EODS Centre, and on the 27th April at the Trinity Theatre Tunbridge wells, 7pm.  This play is already looking extremely beautiful and the students are working so well as a team with many of them leading the production decisions, this is a totally student voiced/student led project. We are fund raising via GoFundMe to hire a coach for the students to travel to Tunbridge Wells.
Mary Poppins with our ‘Robin group’ is now well on the way and is already bringing a tear to the eye. Two of our younger students are playing Jane and Michael with our ‘Robins’ playing the adult roles. We will be performing this at the Hippodrome Theatre on the 5th July and it will open our Summer Show, alongside clips from forthcoming productions from our parent and adults groups play ‘Stepping Out’ our teenagers and young peoples play ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ and a performance from our youngest children.

2024 Autumn Term 2 News

We have had a very exciting term starting new plays and projects.
Romeo and Juliet is already set up to the interval and is looking really very dynamic indeed, with guest teachers from the industry coming into teach specialist areas of dance and stage fighting!
Stepping Out, again is already looking very authentic and the adults in this group have tackled tap dancing admirably, many never having danced a step before!
Mary Poppins with our ‘Robin Group’ is looking beautiful with some of the main numbers set and it is already bringing a tear to the eye. Two of our younger students are playing Jane and Michael with our ‘Robins’ playing the adult roles. We will be performing this at the Hippodrome Theatre on the 5th July and it will open our Summer Show.
Our youngest children’s version of ‘Oliver’ with 5 of the original songs from the musical, is all set and the students are working very hard to polish it ready for the performances on the 5th/6th December to parents, families, friends and at a local nursing home. This is going to be very heart warming indeed! To reserve seats for the 5th December at EODS. Please just let Becky know how many seats you need. Tickets are £5, pay on the door.
Please note that the Friday home ed group will come to rehearsals with the Wednesday group to merge both groups together for this production, on Wednesday 27th November 4.40pm-5.40pm and Wednesday 4th December 4.40pm-5.40pm. On the 5th December, all children in OLIVER, will need to arrive at 4.40pm to get ready and run through the performance, before the show. Parents can arrive from 5.30pm for the performance at 6pm. We will be providing Christmas refreshments. The performance at the Claremont Nursing Home is at 5pm on the 6th December, please arrive in costume by 4.45pm. Thank you
Our forth coming performances of the ‘Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ on the 23rd November 2pm/7pm and the 24th November at 5pm are looking stunning, this cast of adults and children and young people are working so hard. You are in for a pre Christmas treat. Tickets are available from ‘The Grove Theatre’ website. https://www.groveeastbourne.com/events/the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe/
We are excited to start our new National Theatre Connections play ‘Mia and the Fish’ , this coming term, with our teenage and young adult students, some from the Robin group, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
This coming term, term 2, is a 7 week term for most groups and a 6 week term for the Wednesday teenage and Thursday adult group.
From the 14th November our Thursday Adults classes will now be at Tutt’s Barn Lane dance studios.
The EODS centre now has a bell and camera installed to make the building completely secure. Please make sure you arrive in time for the start of the lesson as we will be locking the building at the start of each lesson.

2024 Autumn Term 1 News

We hope you have had a safe and happy summer holidays, and we greatly look forward to starting term 1, the first term of this school year.
We welcome all our new families and students and look forward to starting exciting new projects.
We are proud to announce that we have been selected to take part in the National Theatre Connections Festival again, this was a huge success last year and a great experience for all our students involved.
Our next performance will be ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ on the 23rd/24th November at the Grove Theatre, ticket info and publicity for this will be out soon. It is a beautiful play with music, performed excellently by some of our most experienced students. Our younger students are playing the roles of the children and some of the animals and our adult students are playing the adult roles such as the Professor, Aslan, the Witch etc… in the play.
We try to keep our lesson costs as low as possible but due to increasing costs, I have had to put up all group lessons by 50p. So the hour classes will now be £8 a session and the hour and a half classes will now be £9 a session. Solo and duo lessons will stay the same.
We start back on 31st August until 26th October.
It is an 8 week term for the groups starting on the Wednesday 4th, Thursday 5th and Friday 6th September.
There is a slight change to times on the Wednesdays for safety. Families were struggling to make 4.30pm from school pick up times so we have made the classes from 4.40-5.40pm and the older class from 5.45pm-7.15pm.

2024 Summer Term News

The National Theatre Connections play was a huge success and our students featured in the National Theatre Facebook and Instagram posts that only selected 10 groups out of 240 to feature in them. We finished our run of this play ‘Age is Revolting’ at the Queen Alexandra Homes which was completely moving and hugely appreciated by the residents. This has been a very uplifting and wholesome event to be involved in for all students and staff and parents involved. Thank you all.

This year we will be performing separate plays at different theatre venues in Eastbourne.

In 2025 we will be back at the Hippodrome Theatre for a whole school performance on the 5th July.

Our teenage students will perform their yearly Shakespeare play in the summer as part of the Eastbourne Fringe Festival 2025, which will be ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with other teenage community groups including street dance, BMX/scooter stunts and live music, hopefully in an open air setting, TBC.

2024 Easter Term News

This term 4 has been very busy, our students took LAMDA Exams grades 2-Gold medal and every student got the highest award of Distinction!

Huge congratulations everyone. We have more students taking their LAMDA exams on the 12th and 20th of JULY.

We completed this term with our National Theatre Connections play ‘Age is Revolting’ on Thursday 28th March, when a director/mentor from the National Theatre watched our play. The students have worked incredibly hard towards this event. On the 21st April this group will be performing the same play at the Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. 

After the success of our Romeo and Juliet trip to the Globe, we have arranged a trip to BOAT, the Brighton Open Air Theatre on 19th July, to see a very funny, slapstick, musical, physical theatre, reduced length version (rather like horrible histories or GHOSTS if you watch this on TV) of ‘Julius Caeser’. £16 seated tickets. Meeting at Eastbourne station at around 5pm, and getting the train to Brighton. Please contact me ASAP. 8+


2024 Winter Term News

Our play in term 3, Twelfth Night, was a huge success and extremely well received by the audience! The students were incredible and had a blast performing this, which was so lovely to see.

We start Term 4, with LAMDA exams on the 24th February and wish our students taking these exams from grade 2 to Gold Medal, all the very best!

We have exciting spring performances too!

The National Theatre Connections Play ‘Age is Revolting’ will be performed by our students on the 28th March for our home performance at the EODS centre. Also on the 21st April at the Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. There is a GOFundMe Page – https://www.gofundme.com/f/coach-hire-fundraiser-for-nt-connections-festival to raise funds to hire a coach for our students to travel to the Trinity Theatre, relieving parents of this extra cost. We need £750 to hire the coach for the day. Huge thanks to everyone who has donated so far. We only have £50 left to hit our target of £500 on Gofund me. We have raised £170 through collections and then hope to complete our target of £750 with a raffle on the 28th March. I will be selling raffle tickets this term and if anyone has any prizes they would like to donate to the raffle please let me know.

National Theatre Connections - Age is Revolting by Robinson Academy of Drama

We have also arranged a trip to the GLOBE on 12th March. £15 seated tickets. Meeting at Eastbourne station at 4pm with a packed tea, and getting the train to London. Please contact Becky ASAP. If we don’t have enough people, unfortunately, we won’t be able to go ahead, as the Globe is offering us a reduced rate for a group.


2022 Autumn Term 5 News

A huge well done to all our A-level and GCSE students. A period of change for many of our students is occuring and we wish them all the very best, especially those leaving us to go to university, drama and dance schools. We will miss you all very much. We are very pleased that Sacha and Samuel will be staying to help as staff but we sadly say goodbye to our helper Leon Robinson who is starting university. We all wish him the very best.Samuel will take over from Leon, Zephan will continue supporting the Robin Group and Teagan will be ready to be the supply support teacher to Lisa. Lisa will continue to team teach on Mondays and Fridays and teach solo LAMDA tuition. Sacha will be the artistic and musical director for ‘The Winters Tale’.

We plan to do the Brighton Fringe Festival with our senior students, a big 10 year celebration show at The Hippodrome in the summer for all our students and other plays and events throughout the year. The Robin Group will perform their annual Christmas Panto on the 10th or 11th December (date TBC). confirmed].

Our two senior groups ‘The Witches’ and ‘The Montagues’ and some of our senior solo students are collaborating to perform my re-worked version of ‘The Winters Tale’ on the 16th,17th,18th December at the EODs centre, with past student, Sacha Mansbridge’s band playing live music throughout the performance as our soundtrack. A very exciting project!

Next term, which will be starting back on September 2nd, we are very excited to be starting two new groups!! – The over 60’s – Fridays at 11.15am – 12.30pm and a Parent’s drama group – TBC.


2022 Spring Term 4 News

Term 4 was finished off brilliantly with our wonderful Wednesday senior students performing their excellent adaptation of ‘Hamlet’ which was a huge success. This group of teenagers worked so beautifully as a team and created such a memorable, dynamic play. Thank you for the donations for Rainbow Wishes Ukraine Fund at the ‘Hamlet’ performance.

The Home Ed Group also performed their Spring Festival Show. What a wonderful performance and we are very proud of all of you!

Thanks also to the Home Ed Group for raising £20 for the local charity ‘Time For Children’ on the 4th March during their PJ and story time morning, which was also great fun and very heart warming.

2022 Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival and LAMDA Exams

We completed term 3 with 60 of our students aged 6-60 performing in the EASTBOURNE PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL at the Winter Garden Theatre.
Such heart-warming performances that made us both laugh and cry. Huge well done to all involved, we are so proud of you all.
Also 12 students took LAMDA exams this term and all did brilliantly.
The examiner praised the student’s characterisation, use of movement, professionalism, timing and behaviour.

2021 Great Robin Summer Drama Festival!

What a show we had! We are very proud of all our students who performed on Saturday 10th July, at the Hippodrome Theatre. Our students performed a variety of pieces over 4 shows throughout the day and were all amazing.

We also raised £127 for the charity ‘Jane’s Wish’, which has been passed onto the charity. Thank you to all who supported this charity.


2021 Happy New Year!

We are thinking of you all and wishing you all a happy, healthy, safe and positive 2021.
We understand that the year has already started off very uncertainly for the children and young people with some students in school and others learning online. We will be keeping all our lessons online through Zoom for our students for this term and will start our Zoom lessons back on the 11th January. It will be a 5-week term from Monday 11th January until Saturday 13th February.

2020 Return to Drama Lessons!

We are so looking forward to seeing you all.

The first session back will include socially distanced fun drama games and finding out what ideas the students have for this term. We some ideas ourselves but we want the students to lead with their ideas too, we know many will return with worries and anxieties, so we are very aware that our lessons need to be fun, nurturing and a place where the students feel heard and accepted.

A few reminders, THANK YOU.

  • Please let me know if your child is returning.
  • Please return the new registration form sent via email.
  • PLEASE READ THE KEEPING SAFE ATTACHMENT ‘DRAMA GROUP RISK ASSEMENT INFO’ sent via email.
  • Please can all students bring in their own pencil case with pens in it and a book with their own pieces and scripts in it. I will email any that are needed. Please print off yourselves and put in your own book. Any families without a printer please contact me.
  • PARENTS, please don’t come down the alleyway or in the building, a member of staff will meet all the students at the gate and safely take them to the hall.
  • Please can young children go to the toilet before they arrive if possible.
  • All students must sanitize their hands when entering and exiting the hall.
  • If you are bringing a water bottle it MUST be labelled please. Thank you.
  • Please wear comfortable loose clothing, shorts, leggings and jogging bottoms are preferred. Do not change in the toilets, come ready for the session.
  • Please can you ensure your child/young person wears a mask until they arrive at the doors of the EODS Centre. We will remind them to put it back on as they leave. They won’t be required to wear them during the drama lesson. This is to ensure safety between the different groups as although there is a gap between classes, there may be late arrivals.

2020 Shows/Performances/Festivals

Our Adult ROBIN group start the year off on the 19th January with their Snow White Pantomime. Tickets are £5 on the door at 7pm at the EODS Centre.

The Speech and Drama classes that our students were involved in at the Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival at CAUSEWAY SCHOOL, were extremely successful. Our students did exceptionally well and all shone brightly winning a huge range of medals and trophies which was wonderful. But more importantly what we all notice every year is the kindness and support the students give each other which matters the most and sums our group up. The adjudicator was particularly encouraging this year and very impressed by the work of our students, she said ‘I have been to many festivals over 30 years and this is the highest standard of technique I have ever seen!’ What an incredible compliment to all our teachers, helpers and students.

On March 29th, 10 of our eldest students are performing in Rhys Clarke’s hilarious farcical play ‘The Genius’ at Printers Playhouse at 3pm and 6pm. The MAGLER BAND will be opening this event at 2pm also at Printers Playhouse. Tickets will be limited and will be on sale soon from Printers Playhouse.

Robinson Academy of Drama’s 7th Summer Show will take place on the 11th and 12th July at The Hippodrome Theatre. The younger groups and our solo/duo lesson students will perform on Saturday 11th July in a variety style show. On Sunday 12th July, our eldest groups performing extracts from ‘Whale Song’ and ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’, and another very funny play written by Rhys Clarke ‘Love and Chalk’. The charities/groups we will support next year are ‘The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity’ and ‘The Eastbourne Fibro/ME Support group’.


2019 Summer Holidays News

We sadly said goodbye to 6 of our students who are moving onto University, Drama School or Ballet School and it was a very emotional last week. We wish them all the very best for their next exciting stage in their lives.

Our weekend of Drama Showcases at the EODS Centre were a huge success and we have had wonderful feedback about all of them and the open mic night. The children were superbly behaved both on and off the stage and are a huge credit to you all. We raised £118 for MS and £177 for Alzheimers.


2019 Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival

Our students shone very brightly at the Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival last week. 97 of our students aged 6-60 brought the stage to life with such a variety of theatrical skills from acting, mime, poetry recital, devising drama, performance for entertainment, choral speaking, physical theatre, sign language and movement. Our students gained 1st, 2nd and 3rd in most categories, but most importantly they were supportive of each other and the other competitors and all performed to the best of their abilities and came away smiling. This year we gained the highest amount of trophies so far for us in a Festival for overall winning results, this means that students gained the highest marks in their category over all age groups, in some cases some of our younger children won these over much older students, which is an excellent achievement.

Trophies Won

Duo Mime: Elliot Winterton and Lili Cassidy

Duo Acting: Samuel Kavakli and Leon Robinson

Solo Mime: Zephan Robinson

Solo Acting: Zephan Robinson

Group Mime: Izzy Lynch, Carys Askew, Amelie Askew, Amelie Morley, Saffron Prentice, Antoni Smolej, Charlie Wood, Daisy Stevens, Bree Anna Bowles, Sophia Terry, Juliet Stanley, Mollie Dilley and Tegan Mayhew

Group Improvisation: Mackenzie Newbury, Natalie Wood, Rosa Terry, Gemma Cullington, Eleanor Huxley, Lara Andrade and Isabel Porter

Group Acting: Alenya Sharp, Sian Clarke, Carys Clarke, Emma Walker and Emily Bull

Original Verse: Leon Robinson

Group Devising Drama (original Script): Mackenzie Newbury, Natalie Wood, Rosa Terry, Gemma Cullington, Eleanor Huxley, Lara Andrade and Isabel Porter. These students were awarded the highest mark for Speech and Drama with 91 marks.

2019 Showcase

As the shows at the EODS Centre were successful this year, we have booked the 6/7th July for our summer performances again at the EODS centre in 2019.


St Andrews Christmas Tree Festival, Sunday 9th December

Our younger students led by a few older students took part in the wonderful St. Andrews Christmas Tree Festival (on Seaside Road, near the big Tesco). We created a ‘Nutcracker’ themed performance, as the theme of the festival was ‘Toys’. Thank you to all of the children that were involved and to the parents and friends for supporting this lovely Christmas event.


June LAMDA Exams

A huge well done to every student who took a LAMDA exam on June 29/30th. The certificates and reports will be given to students the first week back. All results were very high, the students achieved exceptionally, so proud of you all.


2018 Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival Success and Achievments

Our students achieved extremely well this year as always.

All were winners and all behaved respectfully and supportively to all around them, full of good spirit and fun.

The adjudicator said it was the warmest, most inclusive festival she had been to and was very taken with the performance for enjoyment non competitive classes which was the idea that we put forward to the committee 2 years ago along with Christine Stanley the teacher from Seaford Youth Theatre group.

Our students were placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd (and received very high marks across the board regardless if they were placed) in the following classes:

Poetry Recital age 7-9 years and 10-12 years and received 2nd joint place in the under 7’s.

Our students were placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Acting age under 12 years (in a very large class) and 13-15 years (in a large class), and 1st and 3rd in the Acting over 16 years.

Our over 12 Tuesday girls won a trophy for highest mark in Play Acting with 88 marks.

Our Friday group 3 students won their Mime section with 88 marks, and our Friday group 4 received a trophy and 90 marks for their extremely moving Devised Play written by themselves based on theme of Kinderstransport.

Both Duo Improvisation classes aged 13-15 years and under 12 years were won by our students.

The Duo Mime students came 2nd in both age groups 13-15 years and under 12 years.

Our Solo Mime students were placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a large class.

Story Telling came in 2nd place.

Our students solo trophy achievements included Original verse 88 marks, highest Solo Acting mark 90 marks, highest Shakespeare mark 90 marks and highest Improvisation mark 88 marks.


A HUGE WELL DONE TO EVERY STUDENT WHO TOOK A LAMDA EXAM THIS SPRING. ALL OUR STUDENTS EITHER RECEIVED A MERIT OR A DISTINCTION, WHICH IS GREAT NEWS. WE ARE VERY PROUD OF YOU ALL. ALSO A HUGE THANK YOU AND WELL DONE TO ALL THE STUDENTS WHO PERFORMED IN THE HEARING RESOURCE PERFORMANCE ‘SIGN OF THE TIMES’.