What are the Necessitities of a Theatre Class? - Transcript

I greatly enjoyed directing 'A Lighter Shade of Noir' last year with my middle school theater students. It had everything I was looking for in a script for 6th, 7th and 8th graders: lots of parts for girls or parts that could be changed to female roles, action without lots of fighting, multiple character scenes that had things to do while other people were talking, a main story line but also sub-plots, links to school subjects (like literature and history), and most importantly - dialogue that I could stand listening to over and over in rehearsal that gave the students motivation to look deeper and deeper into their character development. I hope you write more for theater, especially children's theater. We need more good writing for these young actors. Sharon Boski

I wanted to let you know that we just finished our production of School Daze. My middle school students performed it at an in-school assembly (audience was K-8) and it was wildly popular. The staff and parents loved it was well. I had several people who stopped by to tell me that they particularly loved how "real" the play was. Characters like Marty/Edwin, MacGregor/MacDougal and Cara/Tammy allowed my students to go full out with characterization. Thank you for stocking plays like this - large and flexible casting, lots of short scenes, quick and active, with content that doesn't talk down to my students. These plays are hard to come by, especially with content appropriate for a public middle school.

We wrapped on Somewhere, Nowhere last week. Largest audience my department has ever had, and my kids had a flawless run. Translation: the BEST production I've ever done. The laughs, the raw emotion, the tears of joy and sorrow when it was all over... my grads loved this play, and so did I.