Center Stage Youth Theatre

Posts Tagged ‘People’

I am often so moved every Monday and Wednesday morning as I leave our CD class that I am almost in tears and shaking.  Each class leaves me feeling completely filled with purpose about what we are learning.   I feel as though my whole life I have been heading toward – or perhaps searching for the path towards – the many techniques we are learning for communicating with actors.  With people!   For what is the most important component of directing, teaching…even acting?  It is not the chance and the ability to communicate to other humans, be they young or old, actors or not, what we wish to impart?  To learn from them what they have to offer?  To facilitate in others the ability to develop their own paths to what is important for them to know and for them to say?  And in this moment I feel thankful for those darn state standards, because of all the things that worry me about my ability to teach, one of the greatest fears I have is that I have no real gauge inside me for knowing how to discern the most important lessons to offer the students.  I am grateful for the guidance, at least as concerns the decisions to be made about the academic portions of what we hope to teach, from the state standards and how they can help us as teaching artists to choose what might be the most important content for our students.

Right before we closed for winter break the kids and I spent the last 2 weeks playing more new games, but also working on things for the set and props and costumes for the show.  I was unsure how they would respond to these tasks, but as usual they showed themselves to be eager and quick learners – I think my favorite day was when I had them all working in pairs to construct the three new rolling clothes racks and the room was absolutely a-bustle with team work; I was so grateful to them!  I never could have gotten these things together in such a short time.  And watching and listening to them getting organized and down to work was interesting and informative for me,  and I think I was able to learn more about their different learning styles by observing them in action this way.  And I think they really liked being included in the show preparations; I was happy and proud to include them in the program.

Only 4 kids from Glenforest were onstage in the show  – every one of them did a wonderful job and I was terribly proud of them – but so many other people from Glenforest helped out.  The show truly did  feel like a school function in so many ways.  Thanks everybody.