Thursday, November 22, 2018
A Thank You To My Theatre Teachers
Theatre Nerds: It’s the summer of 2014. I’m a fourteen year old at my church’s music camp sitting in my first ever Drama Class. I’ve loved performing since I was really little whether it was in a choir or in Christmas pageants. For the first time, I learned that theatre is not only just about words on a page but it can be so much more.
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5 comments:
I really relate to the author of this article. I am incredibly thankful to my theatre teachers for everything they exposed me to about the theatre world. Without them, I definitely would not be where I am today. Going into high school, the most experience I had with any kind of performance came from band, various choirs, and a lot of baton twirling. I couldn’t afford to do theatre outside of school, and my school did not have enough funding for a theatre program. The moment I got to high school I got involved with my school’s International Thespian Society chapter, and by my senior year I was an officer who had won six superior ratings for acting and costume design/construction – all thanks to the guidance of my high school theater teachers. There’s no way I would have been confident enough to apply to theater school without these teachers who gave me space to practice and grow with my art—and for that—I’m forever thankful.
Although I was not the biggest fan of my theater teacher I am thankful for all the different opportunities she allowed her students to take. Before coming into high school I thought that I liked stage management and that that was where I wanted to end up. I could not have been more wrong. Her way of allowing freshman to try whatever they want until they find a mentor in a section they really enjoy was something that was extremely beneficial to many of the students at my high school. Many of my friends switched between departments because we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. However the work I was given was never very challenging and her ideal show was far from what the student designers wanted. She controlled how everything looked and no matter what we had to make sure it was perfect for her even if everyone else disagreed. I think that high school theater teachers do deserve a lot of credit though because they allow students to work creatively in an accepting environment.
I’m sure this article probably hit a soft spot for a few of my classmates, as it did for me. Even though I grew up going to an arts school for the majority of my life, if it wasn’t for a few of my theater teachers, I think I’d be in school for Astrophysics right now. For the kids who do not have the opportunity to go to an arts school, these kinds of teachers are very important for their belief and participation in the power of the arts. In a field that is famously known for artists always being broke, it’s important to engage the youth early to show that creativity and dedication can get you very far in theatre. If it weren’t for those few teachers at my high school, I would’ve never known the wonderful people I have the pleasure of collaborating and being friends with, and would’ve never discovered the things I can do creatively.
I think articles such as these are vastly underwritten. Everyone has a start somewhere and for a lot of people, it was with a theatre teacher at some point in grade school. I had three theatre teachers before I got to college and each one contributed to my life in a different, but significant way. If it were not for the kindness of my eighth-grade teacher, I may have never been in theatre because she allowed me to audition late for the drama class which is where I got first introduced into the theatrical world. I think this article is perfectly written with the timeline of the subjects life in theater as she went through school. I quickly realized that theatre teachers in High School are very different than the teachers I have now in college. That seems like a dumb thing to say but my teachers now have the ability to shape me into an even better student and creator that would not have ever happened if it were not for the people that came before them in my education.
Theatre kind of began for me in elementary school, where I performed various roles in dumb school plays, but I never pursued it past that until I went to high school. As part of a required arts elective I took a class called "stagecraft" that was honestly a well-disguised ploy to use freshman high schoolers as labor to build the school plays. This class and it's teacher, Brad Cooreman, were however the things that began my interest and love for theater. Thoughout my high school career, I built the sets for all of our productions and in my junior year, I actually auditioned for some roles in the theater troupe and got cast in two shows I major roles. I couldn't have done any of this, and gotten here to CMU without the mentorship that Brad Cooreman and Michelle Haner, my theater teachers, gave me. I will always be grateful towards them.
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