"Annie" - an AISE Production

Somehow I went from taking Drama as a freshman in High School to (18 years later) teaching Theater Arts to 7th graders. Despite the trial by fire impression I had of being thrown into leading a theater class, this ended up being so much fun! The kids seem to really enjoy rehearsing and generally "hamming it up" in front of each other. In the classroom we worked on writing our own short skits, improvisation, and pantomime, while discussing technical aspects such as blocking, projecting, character development, etc.

After six weeks of introductory lessons, we began auditions and rehearsals for "Annie" our school-wide production. They worked above and beyond to memorize lines, brainstorm and create sets, etc. We had a class of only eleven students. That meant no seperate"tech. crew" or any type of behind-the-scenes help. This small group did it all, while building a true team mentality! Towards the end of our rehearsals, we joined efforts with the 4th grade music classes, who had been separately rehearsing the songs on their own. We were lucky enough to have Ms. Erin Dow's students flesh out the musical aspect of the performance. Roughly 75 elementary students stood on risers on either side of the stage to sing "Tomorrow", "Hard Knock Life", and "I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here". The end result was well beyond what any of us had hoped for and our hard work really paid off.