The Lightning Thief: A Percy Jackson Musical
I loved sharing the music of a lesser-known musical that I never got sick of singing or listening to with a bunch of students who really enjoyed the music too! The Lightning Thief: A Percy Jackson Musical is such a kick! I also think we did a great job of bringing high energy and emotional resonance to the piece in our performances. Since it was my first musical with the school and I’d implemented many changes, including a lighter rehearsal schedule, I was so grateful that this thing happened and it worked!
WXRP happened and it was fun!
This was actually the first test drive of my ideas. I wanted to elevate the non-musical theater aspects of this theatre program. I also wanted a soft entry into producing shows at the school. I decided very early that I wanted to craft my Theatre 3 curriculum around in-depth work on voice, characterization, and script analysis. Performing radio plays seemed like the way to go. Almost nobody knew what I was talking about, but they smiled through my explanations and descriptions and went on the journey so they could see for themselves. The students had a great time performing and I loved seeing their growth. Obviously, there were things to learn and revise on my end, but I think this will be a tradition with tweaks for a long time to come!
The Robin Hood Experience worked and it was fun!
Speaking of doing very different things…our spring semester did an immersive theatre, audience-participation piece around Robin Hood. We even had an audience participation archery range! It felt a little ambitious going in, but it worked and the students absolutely loved doing it! Again, it was a new thing for me as well and I learned a lot about how to better implement this curriculum and production approach in the future. Here’s another tradition with tweaks that I’m in love with. We focused on improvisation, physical characterization, ensemble work, and non-traditional types of theatre storycrafting and spaces.
Inclusivity
A lot of my choices last year were based on the idea of getting as many people involved as possible. My come-from is that theatre in a public high school should be available to as many students as want to try it. None of my shows last year turned away anyone who wanted to be cast.
As the year went on, I became aware of a designation called Unified Theatre. It’s a title for theatre programs that include students with special needs. Woods Cross High School was honored for being a Unified Sports school last year–which is a really cool thing and has been a lot of work for the teacher who headed up pursuing that designation–and it got me thinking about the theatre program. Unified Theatre isn’t nearly as prescriptive and official as Unified Sports but as I was trying to get information about it I realized that every production that school year had at least one special needs student in it. Even the one with the smallest cast. It just happened naturally by removing barriers to participation and saying yes to counselors/parents/students when they asked about if there was space and opportunity for accommodations. I still have more goals related to inclusivity, but I’m delighted about this trajectory.
Budget
I know it’s boring, but this is a monumental thing. I entered this program with the budget in the red. By January, we had produced a musical and a radio play and we were in the black. Funds were super tight, but we could start building the financial reserves to head into the next school year without slipping into the red again.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to break the cycle in my first year of teaching, but it happened. It happened because of the generous support of students, families, and the community. People bought tickets, concessions, advertising space in programs, and made donations. I sold and rented out every piece of costume, set, and props inventory that I could figure out how to sell or rent. Exceptionally talented professionals donated their time to teach music and choreography when they should have been paid, but I couldn’t afford to pay them. I’ve never been more stressed over money than I was this past year, but we’ve climbed out of the hole and can now move forward on more stable ground. It makes me want to throw confetti every time I think about it. That’s tangible progress. That’s hard data that says something worked. Solvency feels so good, I bet sustainability will feel even better.
The Students
I’ve saved the best for last. The bar-none, best thing about my first year of teaching was my students. Here’s where I get weepy. They were funny, kind, vulnerable, clever, hard-working, brilliant, resilient, flexible, nervous, brave, goofy and fantastic! I’ll always remember this group that had to put up with my first efforts, receive all my initial mistakes, and experience my starting learning curve. I’m so grateful for and proud of them!
