[TPIN] Adults playing in student productions

[Steve Evans]

Yes, please save us from elevator music. :)  That's good!
 
I still seem to have the minority opinion here, but that's to be expected when discussing theater on a trumpet list. (Sorry MA but I think this is all good discussion from an education perspective) We've heard so much on this list about the lack of involvement and commitment in the arts, which, BTW, is NOT limited to instrumentalist and certainly not limited to trumpet players, as SOME of you may realize. :) 
 
According to most of you, I'm a "scab" of sorts this past week playing my 4th show this month. In this HS, about 1100 in grades 9-12, there are about 100 kids involved in the show (acting, dancing, singing, lights, sound, set design) and maybe another 100 supporting it with ushers, construction, ticket sales, programs, ... They sold out the house (1000 seats) every night for 4 nights and did it at least a week or two before the show opened. They had a dinner last night before the show and transformed the cafeteria into a classy NYC restaurant with theater set pieces. Maybe 50 kids worked on that beginning after school on Friday and all day Saturday. The show is 42nd St. and if you know the show, it's a huge tap dancing show. Anyone who wanted to be in the show began group tap dancing lessons after school in SEPTEMBER, 2006. If they couldn't cut the dancing by January, they were cut from the show. The pit has 2 teachers (music teachers in the district) playing the bone
 books, 3 teachers playing keyboards (one on synth bass and another on on-stage) and another teacher on drum set with 2 kids on auxiliary percussion. They hired a french horn player,  2 adults on the reed 1&2 books with 3 kids splitting reed 3, 4, & 5 (missing the bass clarinet, bari, oboe, english horn), a guitar & banjo player, and me on lead trumpet with 2 kids on 2nd and 3rd. The kid on 2nd is the best the school has, and he's pretty good, but he is not going to play Ds and Es all night and maybe not at all. I just want it to be clear what this school is doing.
 
The best line I've read on this subject came from Tim Phillips, "If the product is bad, then the experience for 
everyone is bad and no positive educational purpose has been met."
 
So, here's a challenge for all of you. Go out and survey (if that were possible) the kids in all your local school districts and ask them what they think of musicals. See if you can find programs that are really well supported by students and faculty and administration. See which ones are floundering or worse. Then compare their methods. As I said before, you can't argue with what works. You may not like it from a theoretical point of view, but today (NOT 30 years ago) whatever gets kids involved in the arts and produces the kind of excitement and commitment toward the arts that I'm talking about not only from kids but from parents and school boards and local businesses is difficult to dismiss.
 
I know at least 2 schools in this area that are educating students and parents and everyone else in the community through their musicals. They're doing it the way I just described, like it or not.
 
...Steve


 
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