Center Stage Youth Theatre

Posts Tagged ‘Poem’

This past Thursday our Glenforest Multiple Intelligences students – who also happen to be our Drama and Music students – presented a poem and a rap they had written in class to the entire gathering of the gala.  While the children were  wonderful and their charming performance was a big hit, it is unlikely that any but their teachers and their parents realize how very great a triumph this was for many of them.  For many of the kids, the courage it took to get up and take the risk involved in performing was almost debilitating.  But they did it.  They took the chance on themselves;  they took that risk.

Mary Ann and I were incredibly proud of them.

I have been thinking for a while of another kind of project I’d like to do.  I am not sure where to begin, but I know it is a project I want to work on with my mom, who would be perfect for the job.

I’ve been thinking for while that elderly people might get a lot out of  writing, rehearsing and performing an original creation based on significant events in their lives.  I want to help them write monologues – a la Quilters or Spoon River Anthology – and have them tell…oh goodness i am not sure what – the single defining moment in their lives?  (I don’t ask for much, do I?)  But I do know that everyone’s story is interesting and we can learn from the perspective of what older folks have seen and done and survived and processed.  And it seems to me that the experience of creating and performing might fill a real need in the lives of many elderly people for a creative outlet.  For some of them it might be a completely new experience in so many ways.

I remember reading (listening to) May Sarton’s last book and it made such an impression on me when she said she was hoping for one thing at the end of her life:  another good poem.  “That’s the thing that still might happen, you see” she said.  Her statement  has really stayed with me – that at the end of her life when so much was over for her, she still had that ideal in her mind, that she might possibly create another satisfying, beautiful poem.

My mom, with her background in teaching writing, would be a great asset to the entire project.  I have got to get going on this.  I can’t think of any way it could fail, as every part of the project – from the writing through the editing and rehearsing and performing – would be as rewarding and useful for the participants as any other part.