Imagine and Teach

The benefit of arts education has been widely documented,

But what I want to discuss is my first hand experience with high school theatre. (I don’t know why, but we have always used the British spelling.) I just finished directing our school’s production of The Wedding Singer. We had a student company of about 135 including cast, crew, and musicians. The show was a huge success.  Every student contributed to the effort.

So what we had was a large group of students, engaged in an activity that started when we returned from Christmas break.  And when I say engaged I mean it. The evenings during the week were filled with staging, singing, dancing, and dialogue rehearsals.  The band rehearsed once or twice a week in the early going.  The stage crew worked every Saturday and many Fridays after school. And as we got closer to opening, the rehearsal schedule intensified. ,During the last two weeks, all of the parts are put together, and a show is born. Tons of work, and tons of learning.

I call the stage crew our imagineers. Not only do they build the set, paint,, it light it, and mic the actors and band, they identify challenges, suggest ideas, come up with solutions and in short make the perceived impossible truly possible.

One simple example.  As in the movie, the character of Glen arrives in his Delorean. So, we needed one.  A friend fabricated a sheet metal door for the car.  Then the imagineering began.  The door needed a frame.  It needed to be mounted on something, and it needed to open the correct way. So a few members of the crew got together,, went to an auto parts store, bought a hydraulic strut, built a frame, edited the sound effect and the” Delorean” was ready. This process was repeated with the entire set, parts of which left the audience scratching their heads wondering how it was done!

So last night, we closed the show.  And my wife, our choreographer and my assistant director referred to our theatre program as one of the best classrooms in our school. And she was right. What these kids accomplished was much more than five outstanding performances.  Sure we  had a script and a score, but the rest had to be imagined.  The actors had to use left brain thinking to remember lines and blocking, but had to bring life to that with creativity and imagination. They learned to collaborate, to lead to follow, to inquire, and to create.

And assessment?  Each night the audience provided authentic assessment for all of us.  The laughs, the applause, the standing ovations were real.  As were the notes we gave to the students after each performance.

Sure we challenge them.  And they challenge themselves.  There are tough rehearsals, unexpected challenges, great audiences and tougher crowds,  BUt thrugh it all, learning occurs. And the students are at the center of it all.

Kudos to every school that supports its theatre program.

Now we plan the next one.

You can see some images of the show here.  By the way, the lighting you see in the photos was ultimately designed by a student..  Pretty cool.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.