By Lindsay Price

How does the world see you?: Box

How do middle-schoolers deal with perception and the boxes that we all find ourselves in? Lindsay Price’s vignette play, Box, examines these issues while providing great small scene and monologue opportunities.

Sometimes we choose the way the world sees us. Black box – indestructible. Jewelry box – plain on the outside, shiny on the inside. Sometimes our box is defined by others – our parents, our friends, our enemies. A box built by others can feel small, confined, impossible.

How do we handle the boxes imposed upon us because of our gender? Our race? From peer pressure? From parent pressure? Do we have to live with our box for the rest of our lives? Can we change?

Directed by Shannon Boatwright , the drama group at Chapin Middle School in Chapin, SC stepped out of their comfort zone and ensured their production of Box was a soaring success:

My 7th grade honors kids had a blast, learned valuable lessons, made connections and pleasantly surprised me in the end with an incredible performance. And despite losing internet access school wide the day of the show, having to connect to a fellow teacher’s iPhone hot spot to run my sound, and having a choir mic literally fall apart at the start of the performance, well, it all magically somehow came together and our audience LOVED it. (And so did my administration, which was super awesome!)

Having to work hard, focus, commit to something outside of their comfort zone and then reap the fantastic benefits of seeing the whole piece come together and be an important part of it created a priceless experience. They worked really hard and were VERY proud of their work in the end.