If you have seen our current
production, A Thousand Words (Feb. 16- March 11), you may have noticed an
exhibit in our lobby featuring the product of our current educational outreach
program. Jacque Troy, Education Director and Literary Manager for MCT, has been
working with Milwaukee Public School (MPS) eighth graders in a program to link
their Depression Era studies through exercises in photography, playwriting, and
theatre games. Using a combination of A Thousand Words, artistic expression,
and a traditional curriculum, Jacque has been making strides in bringing
historical perspective to young minds in a creative venue.
I recently had the chance to talk
with Jacque about the program and the way it has affected these eighth graders
and their teachers.
How many programs
have you done with MPS students in the past? What makes this one unique?
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| Photo By Jeremy Crump, Story Scool Teacher, Loretta O'Campo |
It would be difficult to estimate exactly how many programs
I’ve done in the past, because it’s a lot!!
I can tell you that I work primarily with 4
th graders and
up. I typically lead classes in basic
acting technique, playwriting (Young Playwrights Festival) or offer pre-show
workshops when high school students are coming to see one of our matinees. Regular program sites include Story School,
Cooper School
and Hartford University School
when I’m working with the younger kids.
High schools I regularly visit include Rufus King, Reagan, Muskego and Messmer.
How have the students
and teachers responded to the Depression Era educational theatre programming so
far?
I’ve been amazed by how much the students have retained
given the unique way the curriculum is being delivered. The teachers are thrilled too. I’ve had some shy performers, certainly, but they’ve
all ultimately been willing to act out or write down their creative ideas. And they continue to integrate historical
facts into their performance work.
Could you walk me
through an example of one of the theatre games you used in this process?
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| Photo by Brandi Shands, Hartford University School Teacher, Rick Clark |
I started the process of curriculum creation by contacting
the MPS Curriculum Specialist for Social Studies and getting copies of the 8
th
and 11
th grade textbooks.
Those are the two grades where the Depression Era is given a great deal
of focus. I wanted to connect what I was
doing and the play’s focus to concepts the students were required to
learn. As a way to bridge history and
performance on the very first day of workshops, I prepared what I called an
oral history timeline. I combined
relevant historical facts with quotes from young people that I got from this
great book called,
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great
Depression, edited by Robert Cohen, 2002.
For this activity, the students were just required to stand at their
desks and loudly and clearly share the fact or quote on their card. It was a great basic history review and
allowed them to know that young people just like them were struggling during
this time. They also got their first taste of “performance” in a safe context. Later the students did improvisations based on
poems written by high school students during this era and ultimately wrote
scenes based on Walker Evans photographs.
It was thrilling to see how they grew in their bravery, their creativity
and their information retention through the 8 workshops.
What about the
process of theatre education do you think reaches young students or students
with special needs? Why is the Depression Era a good focus point for this type
of education?
Many of the students who experienced this programming have
pretty severe emotional, behavioral disorders.
Theatre education allows a more creative, interactive approach to
curriculum, which helps them succeed.
The focus of this curriculum was the Depression Era and specifically
photographer, Walker Evans, to tie it directly to our production of A THOUSAND
WORDS by Gwendolyn Rice. But I’ve found
over 20+ years of doing this that most topics can be taught using these
techniques.
What basic
applications of drama education are teachers able to weave through their
respective course subjects?
There are different universal benefits based on the
curriculum or experience I’m sharing with them.
1.
(Acting Classes) Effective communication
skills are central to any theatre-based performance activity. Many of the performance challenges require
students to pool their creative ideas and determine a means for integrating
everyone's input. This can only be done
through productive discussion. The
instructor also leads reflections on work done previously as a means to
identify and replicate successful performance tactics. Integrating dialogue into improvised scene
work requires both an awareness of language that is classroom appropriate and
that successfully articulates the vocal style of the character being portrayed.
Additionally, students are always encouraged to provide responses appropriate
to the viewpoint of the characters they choose to play and not simply those
reflective of their own opinions.
2.
(Student Matinees) When attending a
production, students discuss and then witness the artistic interpretation of
literary material depicting a variety of cultures during different periods of
history.
3.
(Young Playwrights Festival) Dialogue created for characters requires a
grasp of the manner in which the person would speak based on cultural,
educational and geographical influences. This form of written expression has
also proven completely unfamiliar for most students. Short in-class writing assignments require
student feedback. The crafting of their
own play also requires several rewrites of their original text. Since characters struggling to achieve a goal
in a play employ a variety of tactics, through the playwriting process,
students will be asked to engage a variety of communication intents and
determine whether or not their script does so with both truthfulness and
dramatic success. A "winning" script requires scrutiny by the
playwright's classmates, the classroom teacher and the visiting artist. Feedback received from any of these sources
encourages the student playwright to re-examine the goals and effectiveness of
their written work.
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| Photo by Brandi Shands, Hartford University School Teacher, Rick Clark |
What would be your
ultimate goal in this process? What is your wish for programs like this in the
future?
I want students to know that theatre is for everyone. It’s not just for grown-ups or for kids who
have the “right kind of nice clothes” to wear to the theatre. I want them to know that they can succeed in
learning something new if they are willing to engage in a non-traditional
way. I want them to understand how art
forms have influenced culture, politics and society throughout time. That’s why I always try to include visual
arts and literary arts when I’m creating this kind of programming. I would love to be able to create the same
kind of depth and connection to curriculum in future programming. It was so rewarding to get to spend so much
time with students, know that I was helping their teachers share core academic
concepts, and having the luxury of really seeing them grow and understand over
time.
