The Annenberg Middle School Program is designed to provide unique educational opportunities that expand students’ knowledge and appreciation of live theatre. Students and teachers have deepening encounters with plays and arts education, culminating with student performances of their own original plays.
The Annenberg Middle School Program has created a partnership between Center Theatre Group and six middle schools to develop students’ writing and performance skills and explore age-appropriate issues. Toward these goals, P.L.A.Y. and partner schools together do the following:
- Place a professional teaching artist on each campus to guide students in the writing and performance of an original play.
- Bring students to two theatrical productions a year. In 2009, Annenberg partner schools attended Pippin and Ain’t Misbehavin’.
- Train and mentor teachers to integrate this theatre curriculum into their classes.
2009 Partner Schools and Performances
Berendo Middle School
Drama teacher: Christina Nava-Perez
Teaching artist: Risha Hill
Being Yourself and Fitting In
April 16, 2009
Both plays use Pippin and the theme of “a journey of personal discovery” as a jumping-off point to address issues that affect the daily lives of contemporary adolescents. The first play, Being Yourself, tells the story of Hilda, a teenage girl who is teased by her schoolmates because she is an avid soccer player and a tomboy. The second play, Fitting In, is about a middle school student named Joanna who suffers from self-esteem issues related to her weight. In each case, the young girl learns to be happy with who she really is, rather than bow to bullying and peer pressure.
Carver Middle School
English and Humanities teacher: Thomas Turner
Teaching artist: Lee Sherman
The Story Behind the Gate
April 27, 2009
Based on student writing in the Pippin Discovery Guides, the play was inspired by an imposing steel gate that guards an unused stairwell on the Carver campus and has been chained and locked since time immemorial. An urban legend holds that the gated-off staircase leads to a rooftop swimming pool where a boy drowned many years ago. In The Story Behind the Gate, four girls dare one another to break the lock and climb the staircase to discover the truth once and for all.
To their surprise, our heroines discover that the stairs lead not to a haunted and derelict swimming pool, but to a fantasyland replete with chocolate fountains, candy flowers, countless kittens and “dope” break-dancers and skateboarders. The one rather unnerving feature of the otherwise utopian landscape is a free-standing door that seems to lead nowhere. One by one, the girls venture through the door to find themselves transported back in time to a momentous day in their lives. As they emerge from the doorway, each girl recounts her story to the others and conveys the lesson that she learned in the process. Before they return to school, they swear to keep their discovery secret, and to remember the life-changing morals of each of their stories.
Mr. Turner and Principal Evelyn Wesley provided a catered post-performance reception in the Carver Middle School Parents Center.
Crozier Middle School
English teacher: Morri Schiesel-Manning
Physical Education teacher: Jantonia Mace
Teaching artist: Bernard Addison
Middle School Terror: A Fable
April 2 & 3, 2009
The performance is presented as a play-within-a-play, and is framed by the character “EmZee,” who introduced the play and provided commentary, criticism and direction throughout. The play tells the story of Gabriel, a middle school student who has finally become “cool” at his school, and has successfully asked a girl out on a date for the first time. On this same momentous day, Gabriel’s parents inform him that the family is moving. After navigating the treacherous shoals of informing his new girlfriend that he is moving away and dealing with the backstabbing “friend” who is angling to steal her away, Gabriel arrives at his new school only to discover that he is once again an outcast: the new kid, who is relegated to hanging out with the freaks and geeks. These freaks and geeks, of course, turn out to be complicated, intelligent people with stories of their own to tell. All is resolved, and the new friends and old friends unite for a massive dance party.
The Thursday evening performance was attended by special guests California State Senator Roderick Wright (District 25) and his district representative, Alma Marquez. Principal Steve Donahue and Crozier Middle School provided a catered post-performance reception.
Foshay Learning Center
English teacher: Tracey Jones-Adzaho
Teaching artist: Barbara June (B.J.) Dodge
Corner of the Sky
May 7, 2009
Acting as a sort of Greek chorus, the student actors (all playing themselves) declare their goals for the future while assuming a pantomimed stance representing their chosen profession. Guided by the narrators, cast members agree that to tell the whole story they must go back to the beginning. In time to a rhythm provided by onstage musicians/foley artists, each student reveals a truth about their birth. Next the narrators lead them in depictions of modern adolescent rites of passage and a medieval rite, the knight’s joust. The actors draw parallels between the preparation of the young squires for knighthood and their own youthful milestones.
Reforming a chorus, each actor declares their greatest challenge or triumph up to this point. Underscored by the onstage musicians the chorus asserts that for an adolescent every day is a rite of passage, and that every day they are getting closer to being what they were born to be. As the music fades, the chorus dissolves back into the tableau that formed the first image of the play: Each student in the pose that represents their hope for the future.
Liechty Middle School
Drama teacher: Nancy Kissam
Teaching artist: Marcos Najera
Reality Takes a Vacation: Five Short Magical Plays
June 9, 2009
The plays were written by the participating students and directed by Teaching Artist Marcos Najera and Liechty Drama Teacher, Nancy Kissam. The show was presented in the drama classroom and attended by approximately 60 students and teachers from the other performing arts classes (drama and band). After the show, there was a Question and Answer session with the young artists focusing on the writing process and what it felt like and coming of age stories. Five stories were selected and working in small groups the students wrote and then performed their own stories. In addition, the students created a designated part of the classroom as their “corner of the sky” where they posted writings and drawings about what “corner of the sky” meant to each of them individually.
The five plays included: Everything’s Magic a coming of age story in which a young boy tries to hide the truth of who he is but finally confesses to his best friend that he is a wizard. To his great relief and joy, he learns she is also magical and discovers the freedom of being who you truly are.
In Louie and the Wand young magicians learn to face their fears and overcome obstacles both scary and magical on their journey to become skilled wizards.
The Serial Caper is a comic adventure story where a teenage boy is kidnapped by a grieving mother who has lost her own son. Challenged by the Teaching Artist, Marcos Najera to not use guns to resolve the conflict in the script, the students used dueling cereals – Lucky Charms versus Trix – to great comic effect. A daring (and dancing) cop and a brave Mom rescue the boy.
The Game Plan imagines what might happen if a girls’ soccer team played the boys’ soccer team in a middle school battle of the sexes. Using Astroturf for the soccer field, the students performed a stylized, slow motion soccer game. The girls overcome their fears of playing against the boys and go on to win the game.
Fighting Ransom took a political stance in which the female president of the United States is trying to raise funds for education but to do so must raise everyone’s taxes. A disgruntled citizen captures her and says she is the source of the problems. The President must figure out her value and her values, both monetarily and socially. She is rescued by a dedicated staff member and must carry on the challenging work of education reform.
One student, Christian Bhagwani, who was transferred into the class after the writing process was complete, brought his guitar to class and shared with the Teacher and Teaching artist that he would like to play music in the show. He proved to be a talented artist, and provided original scoring and mood music throughout the performances.
Virgil Middle School
Drama teacher: Cari Goin
Teaching artist: Steve Neumann
Untitled
June 4, 2009
Support for the Annenberg Middle School Program is provided by the Annenberg Foundation and the Darden Restaurants Foundation.
Main Photo Credit
Joe Hernandez-Kolski and choreographer Jacques Heim in rehearsals for The Stones.
Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Inset Photo Credits
Crozier Middle School student as “EmZee” in Middle School Terror: A Fable, April 2, 2009.
Annenberg teaching artist Lee Sherman (center) takes a break during rehearsal for The Story Behind the Gate with Carver Middle School students.
Annenberg teaching artist Bernard Addison in the booth with the student stage manager at Crozier Middle School.
Photos by Michael Farmer Photography.
