Strike One: Charlie Brown

So the new Theatre Arts teacher, Greg Allen (formerly of BCLA fame), and I have been collaborating on a successful Irving Drama season. Our first project in the works is a touring show "a PR" gig as the Principal, Mr. Unobskey called it. The idea is to take it to the elementary schools from which we get our 6th grade students.
I'm all in; it'd be a December show, just before the holidays and a great way to ease into an early production schedule.
I had my heart set on doing "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," and I rented the book and script. Then we got a letter in the mail from the library company Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc.: "Your quotation is as follows: Royalty and Rental for first performance $275, Charge for each additional consecutive performance $105...the above quotation is based on a seating capacity of 250...and tickets priced at $5 and no charge." Did you get that last bit? Some tickets, in fact MANY of them, will be FREE. We aren't going to charge a group of elementary students to see our play! So where does this $ come from?
Needless to say we are exploring other avenues.
Ultimately it was better this way. Greg said the music was more difficult than he remembered and we both agreed a lot of the language was complex or antiquated.

When I was 12 I was in a musical called "How to Eat Like a Child." It is similar to "Charlie Brown" in that it broken up into vignettes of small groups of characters, the songs are about childhood, it will appeal to elementary school students, and it will appeal to our students. Unlike "Charlie Brown," if I read the Samuel French website correctly, we could afford to do this play! It has a really simple set: 6 cubes plus some props would do the trick, and if there is something more elaborate we can cut it and the continuity of the play is not lost.

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the text. Cross your fingers that we strike gold with this one!!! Time is starting to become an issue!

Is it too early to tell?

Well, shoot!

Everything is going really well in Room 312: the room with a first-year teacher in the confident body of a fifth-year teacher.

I have an AMAZING cluster, who eats lunch together everyday. While the specialty cluster (as much as I love them), didn't spend much time together outside of our meeting schedule, and being spread throughout the building certainly didn't help that feeling of isolation.

My partners in crime/fellow ELA teachers, Sharon and Nicole, make me feel like I know what I'm doing! And while I go into each class with new material I've only previewed on my own, when I use it in instruction I feel like, hey---maybe I'm supposed to be a teacher!!!

Teaching ELA is fresh, exciting, and fulfilling. I feel like I'm seeing my students from an entirely new perspective. In specialty I got a version of the students sitting in front of me today. My ELA students clearly come from a background trained in ELA techniques, strategies, and concepts. Theatre Arts students were somehow wilder, freer, uninhibited by what is and isn't ok in acting class.

Once again I am faced with the challenge of 2 performances this year: a december touring musical, and another talent show. I've already had students begging for info on the talent show, which makes me think we did the right thing last year.

I'm also attempting to add a bit of cultural education to our 7th graders. At our first cluster meeting I suggested we organize monthly meetings for the students with guest speakers. Anyone out there in the interweb with ideas for adults who could be: role models, share experience, inform (entertainingly), or teach our students something they don't get during the school day? I'd love your feedback. I've already gotten some ideas, but you can never have enough!