School play

In February, 2 of my 8th grade students approached me about their interest in writing and performing a play. They had an idea for a play and wanted my help in making correcions and directing the performance. I agreed. A couple of weeks later, they expressed interest in turning their play into a musical in which they wrote thier own songs. Although I was quite surprised by their ambition, I did my best to encourage them and referred them to the music teacher for the song part. A couple of weeks later, both students admitted that writing their own songs was too hard, but still wanted music in their play. This is when the music teacher and I joined together to turn their play into a musical review. Even if the final result didn't go too well, we thought it was different enough that everyone would still probably like it. Mrs. Anderson and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon polishing up the script, deepening the plot, and adding more character development. Soon, we had character personalities that matched the actor/actress, a list of Western songs to compliment the theme, and a vision for how we wanted this to go. Every spring, the music department puts on a spring concert with performances by K-4 choirs, 7/8 band and 7/8 chorus. We worked out a way to perform the play on stage, while the chorus and band provided the music. What we ended up with was a lot of time spent rehearsing and an enjoyable evening.
I must say that I was quite impressed with the final performance. It was the first time all of the students actually did what they were supposed to do almost perfectly. They finally delved fully into thier character and used facial expressions and gestures in just the right places without me telling them.
I did play a small part in the play. The final scence of the play was a square dance. I choreographed a simple and short square dance in which I put on some boots and a cowboy hat and called out the moves. In the eyes of some of my 7th grade boys - my lines and actions was the best part of the entire performance. I did invest a lot of time in this play, but the rewards were well worth it! It was fun and kept the attention of audience members old and young.