Young describes herself as a “caretaker” – she lives in the caretaker’s apartment above the school with her husband, Norman – although she is actually the founder and principal of her school. At 82, small and lightning fast, she no longer teaches, but is always around. When we walk to school together, the students smile and say hello to her with an easy confidence I never had as a child (and Sylvia is always for them, she says, never Mrs. Yang – although to be more precise, she is Mrs. Raphael because Young is, quite aptly, a bit of a stage name). Just don’t call it a stage school. Every year Young holds an assembly – the school has 220 full-time students, ages 10 to 16, and 900 students on Saturday – and asks the children, “What should we not be?” he says, “and everyone shouts ‘kids at school!’”. Talent… a young Nicholas Hoult. Photo: KMazur / WireImage In recognition of her 50 years of teaching drama, shaping the careers of many performers, Young is one of five recipients of this year’s Special Recognition Olivier Award. She is happy but says: “It’s very strange. “You do not really know that someone else has noted what you are doing.” But many of her students, whether full-time or Saturday students, have had remarkable careers – including actors Keeley Hawes, Billie Piper, Nicholas Hoult and Daniel Kaluuya, singers Dua Lipa and Rita Ora, and a large number of pop groups. . The school also has EastEnders well stocked. “Many of [the students] “She is doing very well,” Young agrees. A Spice Girls song hits the background, which should be inspiring for students – Emma Bunton came here – although many of the current works are already running successfully in West End shows such as Matilda and Hollywood (Woody Norman, 13, was recently nominated for a Bafta for his role in Joaquin Phoenix (C’mon C’mon). Amy Winehouse was one of Yang’s students in the ’90s, so talented that she was given a partial scholarship. She was, says Young smiling, “very naughty. I liked it very much.” She was also “very smart”, but that meant she was often bored with her academic work which seemed very easy to her, even though the school took her up a year. “It would upset the academic teachers, except for the English teacher who thought he would be a novelist. She seemed to be just a favorite. “But she was naughty.” Nothing terrible, he says – things like wearing extra earrings, which Winehouse would take off and then come back an hour later. The story goes that she was expelled from school, but Young says that is not the case. Is it true that she kicked out her own daughter, Frances? “Yes, that’s true,” he says with a smile. Frances Ruffelle would continue to be a musical theater star (and her daughter is pop star Eliza Doolittle, now known as Eliza), but when she was in school in the late ’70s, Young says she realized go to work “, being her teacher. Young was born in Hackney in 1939, just as World War II broke out. She was too young to remember many of these, although she remembers screaming for her grandfather to go down to the cellar when the air raid sirens sounded, but was evacuated and lived with “a very beautiful mining family”. in a village near Barnsley. “It was a great experience for me. “They wanted to adopt me, but my father did not think it was a good idea.” Back in London, and one of nine children, Young sought refuge from her busy home in the local library, where she went every day to read. “I read a lot of works,” he says. It was done in a group of other children “and we would do toy readings and small performances”. Did she want to become a performer? “I did, but I used to be scared of the stage.” He became a member of Mountview, a theater company, then in north London. “I used to lose my voice before every production. “When I think about it, it was like a panic attack.” Another graduate… Billie Piper. Photo: Mike Prior / Redferns Young left school at 16, “primarily because I wanted to be able to buy socks,” she says with a laugh. In her early 20s, she got married – Norman worked as a telephone engineer – and became a stay-at-home mom. She did one last show for Mountview shortly before her first daughter was born, playing a bartender (they built the bar high around her to hide her pregnancy), Norman took her, heavily pregnant, to the station on the back of his bike. Young never intended to start school, but gradually emerged from theater lessons she would do for children at her two daughters’ elementary school. It would cost 10 p a lesson, for which you would also get a cup of orange squash and a cookie. “Everything just grew up,” he says. It’s the talent that leads to success, but it is also the right job at the right time. Pure luck The children wanted to do full-time theater training and when asked where they could go, she did not know. Her Saturday school was at a boys’ sports club on Drury Lane and when it became available during the week, a friend of the principal suggested they start school. Initially, they had less than 30 full-time students. “It was crazy. I did good vocational training and there were opportunities, but it took me a long time to start training “. It grew steadily, largely thanks to Yang’s determination. “I had the chance,” he says. “I think I was so bold in those days, I was very lively. I’m softened. “There seems to be a whole generation of London drama school matriarchs – Anna Scher, Barbara Speake, Maggie Bury Walker. Did she feel rivalry with them?” we respect it [everyone]”, Says Young. “Whether they feel differently about me or not, I do not know.” She laughs. The group moved to an obsolete school in Marylebone, which they later bought and where they will stay for 30 years. Once the championship tables began in the 1990s, Yang had to focus on academic achievement. “The other day, we did school shows that were brilliant, well ahead of their time. “We would stop school for three or four weeks and rehearse.” Now, he says, academic work is “in the forefront” (Monday through Wednesday, children study; on Thursdays and Fridays, they attend performing arts classes). “I do not want anyone to be disadvantaged by coming to a school like mine,” he says. Enter… Daniel Kaluuya. Photo: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images It was not a good time for specialized drama schools – several, including Italia Conti junior school, Barbara Speake Stage School and Redroofs in Reading, have closed in the last two years. “I can understand that,” says Young. “[The pandemic] hit our finances for six, but we’re still here. “It was only because we were doing well and we had something to return to, but we no longer have anything to go back to.” Is there still room for a vocational school like hers? As expected, he believes it exists. “I think the kids who are leaving here are so well equipped for the world. Not just for the profession, [but] communication skills, understanding of discipline, ability to speak to adults “. Tuition is almost £ 5,000 per period, although he says a large percentage of students have received scholarships and fellowships. “I never wanted it to be exclusively for rich kids.” There are certainly children from affluent families, but others, he says, whose parents do second jobs or whose fees are paid by relatives who run clubs. Has he seen the business change? Is it more difficult for low-income children to make it? “I think the talent will come out,” he says, slightly opaque. Young says she usually can not say who will be hugely successful. “You see the right thing to do, but it does not always work. It’s talent, but it’s also the right job at the right time. Plain luck. “ Apart from the few alumni who have become well-known names, many others work in the profession in some capacity, such as casting agents, camera operators and screenwriters. Others have opened their own dance or theater schools. Theater is a notoriously difficult and competitive business, and no less so for children who audition – sometimes at odds with each other – and do not take on roles. How does it teach them to handle rejection? “We instill in them that they are not the ones who are rejected or their talent, it just was not the vision that the specific director had for the specific piece.” Keep going … the school moved to Marble Arch in 2010. Photo: Shutterstock Can Young define the quality of the stars? “No,” he says. “I remember a young student who had not danced before and just put something in the music. He just instinctively… »He smiles. “True little geniuses have inherited something, but they are rare.” We walk behind the canteen, where a rock band is rehearsing loudly – one of the boys he plays is Billy Barratt, who recently won an International …
