Drama

The School has an excellent reputation for the quality of its drama and productions extend across the whole range of comedy, tragedy, classical, modern and musical. Recent productions include Oliver, Grease, Little Shop of Horrors, The Trojan Women, and A Street Car Named Desire to name but a few.

The Grove Theatre provides an ideal venue for students to put on professional productions. The state of the art ‘tech box’ allows pupils' dramatic talents to be supported by technical ones as they become involved in developing ambitious sets and creating different lighting and sound effects for productions. The new Drama Studio, complete with black out curtains and mirrors, provides a unique venue for rehearsals and in-the-round performances.

Pupils from The Grove have been successful in their applications to the National Youth Theatre, have taken productions to the Edinburgh Festival, and a number of our Old Grovians enjoy successful careers in the Arts.

Music

The Grove has a distinctive sound, the product of many orchestras and bands, choirs and ensembles maintaining its long musical tradition. We currently have over 22 musical rehearsals every week covering virtually every type of music from orchestral, swing, rock to soul. If you play it we like to think you can play it with others here. The newly built Davy Building provides state of the art facilities, which include individual practice rooms, music ICT room, keyboard room and a recital room for choir and orchestra rehearsals. The numbers of pupils who seize the opportunity to learn and participate enable the Director of Music to stage a programme of events at every level of the school and promote a repertoire of informal recital concerts and instrumental evenings to full choral and orchestral concerts. A typical term will involve several different types of concert from the informal break-time coffee concert, to the large scale final concerts on the last night of term. In between, there are chamber and recital concerts as well as soirees for Year 11 and Sixth Form. The new Year 7 Music Festival gives every pupil the chance to sing or play on the school’s main stage. The annual battle of the bands provides a showcase for the more popular acts.

We also have visiting peripatetic staff who provide pupils with the opportunity to learn virtually any instrument. The instrumental and vocal teachers are a dedicated team who not only give lessons but often run ensembles for the instruments or voices they teach.

Recording Studios

The Davy Building also contains a professional Recording Studio with mixing desk, outboard production equipment and computer-based recording software, which allows pupils to record their own compositions and performances.

Voice

The Grove has a number of choirs for pupils to join, ranging from the Boys' Barbershop and the 7s & 8s Choir to the Grove Singers. Regular concerts allow pupils to showcase their talents to packed audiences. The choirs and orchestras regularly perform at venues outside school, like local churches and nursing homes, but they also have the opportunity to travel further afield to perform to audiences overseas.