Day #12: The Final Performance!

Thursday 2/25: Hello, and welcome to the final blog for my time as the theatre Arts Bridge specialist at South Jordan Elementary. Today we had out final performances. This blog will mostly be pictures since I have spent my last few blogs discussing what the students would be presenting for this event.

Something really unique about their performances today was that they were recorded and the teachers and me (and even some of the students) were interviewed for the new promotional video for the Arts Bridge program. I'm super excited that their hard work and the subject of theatre will be featured in a commercial for the program!

Before the students began, I taught them 2 final theatre vocabulary words that were pertinent to today:

1) Dress Rehearsal: the final run-through of a performance, where every element needed for the scene  (costumes, make-up, props, setting, scripts) is present. Nothing is missing, so the run-through goes exactly like the upcoming performance.

2) Curtain Call: the final moment of the actual performance, where the audience claps and the actors take hands, raise their arms, and bow together. This normally happens after the curtain closes, then re-opens for the bow. OR the curtain closes immediately after the bow and the actors wave to the audience as it closes. The actors are normally not in character anymore during the curtain call. 

Mrs. Bailey's 4th Grade Class presented their FOSSIL SCAVENGER HUNTS:

 

Here the class is anxiously rehearsing their projects. They performed in front of one class on 4th grade students. The teacher of this class is the one who teaches the students about fossils, the counties, and the vocabulary found in their scenes. She had given me their worksheet packet full of the information we used in the scenes, which made them very enjoyable for her to watch, I imagine.

This picture gives you a great perspective of the size of the audience and the setting, made up of the narrator's chair to the
left (from our perspective), the 3 desks marked "1, 2. 3" for the 3 locations and for the props to be laid on, and the 3 chairs at the very end (to the right) where the actors would find their prize! I actually did not set up those 3 chairs. They thought to do that on their own!

Here, you can see the narrator sat stage right (which looks like left to the audience)
and the actors began their journey to find the three clues, standing right next to him.
They have their orange bucket, and are ready to begin the hunt!

The students examine the 3 rocks (blocks) found at location 2.
(Also, they were dressed like Utah pioneers because of their dress rehearsal
right after theatre class, where they practiced their Utah history performance.)

This same group examines the 3 different sticks (pipe cleaners) at location 3.

I love how closely they examine the fossil (pentomino) at location 1.
These kids were such great little actors!

This little group of rocks was in the shape of a tiny piano,
which they pretending to play!

This group ponders on what the prizes at the end of the scavenger hunt might be.
I wrote the script in the way that all students in the scene could wish for it
to be something different. This was fun because often times the students got
what they had wished for, or they got a combination of the 4 things.

This green fossil (pentomino) was a water gun, held by a penguin that started
spraying the other kids!

I love how they made a little animal out of the 3 rocks/blocks. I tried to make
sure I gave the students different shaped blocks to give them more options.

This group was under pressure at the beginning of rehearsal because they were missing an actor.
He just happened to be absent that day. But luckily Jacob, an eager student (right) was willing
to step in and play Donovan's role. Here they are, examining their sticks. He did a wonderful job!

I loved this group because they went above and beyond and included books
at the beginning of their scene to demonstrate that they started off their hunt in a
library. I thought that was super clever. Including the beginning, 3 clue locations,
and ending--where they find the prize--this little scene has 5 locations. It helps
to find ways to show the audience that you have entered different ones as you go.  

I loves this use of the pipe cleaners. They tied them together and put them in the
shape of Utah! How perfect, since the entire unit was on Utah geography and fossils!
I love how this clue led the characters to travel to the Museum of Ancient Life. Many
students kept the three sticks separate but I liked seeing this group think outside
of the box and to blend them together.

Class picture! They did such a wonderful job! I was so proud of them. The teacher and students also presented me with thank you cards (one per student that they had made from scratch) and a little potted plant! So thoughtful! I will keep those cards forever.

Mrs. Ormsby's 5th Grade Class presented their FRACTURED FAIRYTALES:

The 5th graders had a bit more pressure on them since they performed in front of an audience of about 75 people! The actors all stood over stage left (in the back of this picture) and two 5th grade classes filled in the floor space to make the house, where the audience sits facing the stage. Then the parents and grandparents and other family members sat in chairs in the back. I was so impressed with the turn-out. But what was even MORE impressive what the work the students had put into their performances, namely writing out their entire script.


Below are 2 sheets of different scripts, demonstrating just how much work these students put into their scripts after filling out the character cooking show template with the major events and characters. I love how they color-coded and highlighted their lines, and even put stage directions in parenthesis. I didn't even teach them about that! Then many of the students memorized their lines. I told them to carry their sheets on stage if needed. Memorizing is a lot of work, and it is perfectly acceptable for this stage of the process and for this age, for them to hold their scripts as long as it is not too distracting. Look how detailed and long some of their writing is! The groups use GOOGLE DOCS to write the scene together using their individual Chrome Books. That is such a clever and ingenious use of technology! So professional. One student mentioned in his video interview that writing these scenes made him a better writer, which was a major goal of mixing English/writing core curriculum with theatre! Hooray!

During art class, the students made backdrops for their scenes and we hung them up on the whiteboard so they served as the background for the scene. It was very legit! I was blown away. Here are the backdrops. Some people had decorated the back and front, due to the multiple locations in their scene.

The students had a prop table, set station, and a fabric bin off stage
(in the left wing), and were very helpful in handing each other
the needed objects, setting up, taking down (striking the set), and sharing
the materials. I was so impressed with students who immediately
volunteered to be in charge of the prop table.

Here are some pictures of their performances.

Mean Kira and the 2 Space Whales and her faithful dog!
Kira eat's the whales' fruit off their tree without permission and needs to be confronted.

Space Whales!

Odell's Big Adventure, trying to find the bathroom but ending up going to Light Saber
training classes and joining the Dark Side.

Three Sheep (can't you tell by the white fabric?) and the big bad fox!
She's blowing down their houses (red stools)!

Big Bad Fox gets the moral of the story:
you can only play with others if you are nice.

Belle and Her Beast. Here, she and her friend confront the Beast at the ball.
I love how Dominic used the cape and mask for his Beast costume.

Alicorn (alien + unicorn) falls from the sky and captures two girls and
brings them back to his spaceship.

Little Red Riding Hood and the 2 Squirrels.
I particularly love the outfits in this one. Great raccoon hat!

Thank you so much for following this blog! I hope you found it helpful and that it gave you some ideas if you ever get the chance to incorporate theatre terms, warm-ups or activities in your future lessons. Look forward to the promotional video featuring my students and the teachers and myself from this day of exciting theatre productions! I will post it on this blog. Thanks!

Day #11: Rehearsing the Final Performance

Tuesday 2/23: Today was another rehearsal day for the students since the last day of Arts Bridge is Thursday this week, and so their final performances will be that day as well. I just found out that the students, teachers, and I are going to be recorded and interviewed for a new promotional video about the program. I am super excited! Out of all the videos I have seen for both Arts Bridge and the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, theatre is not represented very much, so this will be a chance to show what we do in the classroom, and how we incorporate theatre into the curriculum and vice versa.  

First we started off right with our warm-up, as always. We played the focus exercise called "Pass the Clap", which the students have played with me before. We went around the circle both ways, and then I introduced how people can choose to change the direction of the clap in the middle of the game by clapping back in the same direction, which they thought was cool! I encouraged them to try this on their own, when they play it some other time. 

Then we learned some vocabulary words, which related directly to the information and tips they would need for performing their scenes. 

As for the final job, we talked about how the playwright is the person that writes the play. All of them have been playwrights throughout the semester, coming up with the ideas for their group scenes and writing them down.

I taught them the terms for setting props (putting the props where they need to be for the top of the performance) and getting into places (positioning yourself where you are when you start the performance) since I will be using those terms on Thursday to get them situated for the performance. Since they will have an audience, I want them to understand all the terms I use, and for them to feel prepared and to be as professional as possible as they get set up and perform! :)

Blocking is the term for all of the planned-out movements throughout the scene. It is important the the students have their scenes entirely blocked so that they know where they are supposed to move at any given moment so they don't have to do any side-coaching while they are performing, and that we can make sure everyone can be seen. The students can improvise their blocking for a little bit, but they need to have a clear sense of where they are supposed to be standing/sitting or anything else at any given time so as to not look chaotic or pull focus an confuse your audience.

Cheating out means to turn your body toward the audience, even if you are talking to people right next to you. You still need to turn a little bit so that everyone can see and hear you.

Mrs. Bailey's 4th grade class received this instruction for their fossil scavenger hunt scenes.

I took their scripts home over the weekend and typed them up so that the narrator would be able to read it more easily. Then I also took the liberty of adding in sentences to make the story more clearer with a better flow. I also wanted to make them longer so the scenes would not be so short and abrupt. I also had to add the fossil vocabulary words into the scripts for some of the groups who forgot to enter them into their scripts.

As the kids did a practice performance last week, I realized that having the locations be counties in Utah is really cute and educational, but the setting needs to be a bit more specific and imaginative to make the play more fun to watch. So I left new blanks in their scripts after typing them up, asking them to be more specific with the location. For example, a pizza restaurant in Utah County. 

Some groups had a bunch of different interpretations for each fossil, rock, or stick. So I told them to identify who was interpreting the different objects in the scene, therefore mentioning their names in the script.

Another issue we faced when rehearsing last week was that the students were placing the narrator stage Left and moving the scene from Left to Right. That is fine, but it looks better for the audience to have the narrator on stage Right and have the actors travel to their various locations from stage Right to Left. Since stage directions are from the perspective of the actor, that means the actor's right is actually the audience's left. And moving left to right from the audience's perspective mirrors the way that people naturally read: from left to right. So it looks more pleasant to see actors move the same way as they enter a room and travel across the stage to get to their destination.

Each group gets an orange bucket to hold and collect their props
as they go along their scavenger hunt.

The desks are the set. We had an issue with the students facing upstage (towards the board) when they were going on their hunt and finding their props. Then we couldn't see them or the props. So I put the desks downstage and numbered them so that all the scenes look pretty uniform, and they don't have to worry about making sure the audience sees the props, or knowing where they should set their props.

Desk 1 will be where they find their fossil (pentomino).

Desk 2 will be where they find their rocks (blocks).

Desk 3 will be where they find their sticks (pipe cleaners).

Here is the program for Thursday.

Final Performance  

Mrs. Bailey’s 4th Grade Class

Art form: Theatre

Theatre Instructor: Haley Flanders

Curriculum: Fossils and Utah Counties

Scene: Fossil Scavenger Hunt!

Group 1) “The Million Dollar Baseball”

By Addison Goodwin, Ellis Herring, Alex Dean, and Lincoln Boyce

Group 2) “Licorice, Pretzels, and Magic Potions”

By Jacob Ngatuvai, Lex Clayton, Ava Martinez, and Chloe Bremser

Group 3) “Piano Stores and Mansions for Scientists”

By Lizzie Westwood, Ashley Watts, Kynzee Dixon, and Sophie Cummings 

Group 4) “Penguins, Dolphins, and Whales, Oh My!”

By James Lowther, Sky Gammell, Lexi Preston, Lafu Seumanu, and Ashlee Sumsion

Group 5) “Unicorn Rocks and Arcades Games”

By Logan Hansen, William Jacobi, and Parker McClement 

Group 6) “Tigers and Basketball Players in the Tropics”

By Lucy Herring, Tayler Anderson, Donovan Averitte, and Matthew Larson 

Group 7) “Dinosaurs and Skating around Utah”

By Kaley King, Brooklyn Cardon, Lily Overfelt and Tiedra Vantienderen

This is what the students' scripts looked like after they had filled their papers out the first time.
The little sheets at the top of the picture are the two vocabulary words they had to include in their scene.

Here is a list of all the vocabulary words and definitions included in these scenes. Each of the 7 groups had 2 words to include and to put it into context. 

1) extinction: loss of an entire type of organism

    environment: the surroundings and conditions in which an organism lives

2) impression: a mark of design made on a surface by pressure

    infer: a process of reasoning from something known or assumed

3) mineral: a natural solid material that has a particular crystal structure

    organism: a living thing that carries out basic life functions on its own

4) prehistoric: belonging to a period of time before recorded history

    preserved: kept from hard or change 

5) replacement: the process of an organism’s hard parts being dissolved and replaced by    

    other minerals

    sedimentary: formed from mud, sand, small pieces of rock or other sediments that are 

    pressed and naturally cemented to form a rock.

6) trilobite: an extinct ocean shellfish

    tropical: a very hot and moist climate

7) climate: a pattern of weather over a period of time

    dinosaur: an extinct organism

Here are their scripts after I typed up their information (which is in bold) and their vocabulary words are in red. The groups had various amounts of blanks in their script to make the scene more whole (action, people, location) and they filled in these blanks today (Tuesday). I got so many compliments and thank you's from the students for enhancing their scripts.

Here is the program for Mrs. Ormsby's Fractured Fairytale scenes. Today they worked on their laptops in class to finalize their scripts since they are writing them from scratch, based on the information from the character cooking show activity.

 Final Performance!   

Mrs. Ormsby’ 5th Grade Class

Art form: Theatre

   Scene: Fractured Fairytales 

Theatre Instructor: Haley Flanders

Group 1) Once Upon a Twist

By Chris Bodin, Katie Jorgensen, Bree Black, and Luke Williams

Group 2) Odell’s Magical Adventure 

By Alli Hawes, Nate Stayner, Garrett Michaels, and Sara Stevens

Group 3) The 3 Little Sheep and the Big Bad Fox

By Madison Praag, Sayge Nelson, Jessie Johnson, and Trinyti Petro

Group 4) Beauty and Her Beast

by Olivia Abbadusky, Dominic Codella, Kallie Jensen and Trent Wall

Group 5) Alicorn and the Two Girls

by Macie Praag, Seth Jensen, Jack Loudon, and Jordyn Anderson

Group 6) Kira and the Two Space Whales 

by Kendall Williams, Kira Roberds, Jake Hibbert, and Wesley Hunt

Group 7) Little Red Riding Hood and the Two Giant Squirrels

By Maddie Horsley, Alivia Taylor, Taylor Gammell, and Parker Strang

This was their list of things they needed to get accomplished for class today. We also went through props and collected their large backdrops that they had drawn and colored in art class prior to today. They will hang up on the white board as the kids perform on Thursday. Pictures to come!

I allowed the students, one group at a time, to pick out their fabrics and
masks for their scene.

The kids will share fabrics and masks if the groups want to use the same things.
This process was very rewarding; the kids were so prepared with what they needed
for their scenes, and some had even brought their own props and costumes!

The next and final post (day #12!!) will be all about their final performances, which they will perform in front of students at the school. Look forward to that!