Helping students is not a job—it’s a choice
Caitlin Goruk, Dan Martinello, Ian Brown, Mike Davidson, Shawna McTaggart, Megan Hlewka and Megan Castiday in dress rehearsal for The Princess Bride.
Linette Smith
I’ve always said that my job doesn’t feel like a job, and I believe that even more now that we’ve wrapped up Eastglen High School’s production of The Princess Bride.
The play, which opened May 2, was the Edmonton school’s third big show of the season, and opened after three months of five 80-minute classes a week (minus holidays and PD days!).
The school’s fine arts department opened the season with Narnia—the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which ran in December. We followed that in March with the musical Chicago and the epic tale The Princess Bride closed our season in the Eastglen Majestic Theatre.
The Princess Bride production was undertaken by my performing arts class and is very much a part of my job, but the many hours of rehearsal, set building, costume design, research, and public relations and ensemble building, seldom felt like work. Theatre work allows me to create with the most enthusiastic young artists I’ve ever met—artists willing to take risks and build larger-than-life characters (which are much needed for tales like The Princess Bride). The performing arts students come from Grades 10–12. Some have no experience and others have been in the program for three years, yet they all find a way to help each other find their roles, commit to the work and have fun doing it.
In the time leading up to a show, we work on many skills to prepare the students for their public performances. We study movement for actors and use Laban/Bartenieff movement techniques, which empower actors to find their characters’ way of moving. We also study vocal techniques that strengthen the actors’ voices and protect them from wear and tear. In addition, we study the playwright/author and the world that the writer has created to build a believable world ourselves. The commitment it takes to maintain a role and make it believable is an essential element of the training. In addition, each student keeps an actor’s prompt book and journal to track his or her progress and growth as an artist. All this is necessary, so that by the time the curtain goes up, we feel like a theatre company.
Creating theatre is much more than the physical work, however. The time we spend together allows students to get to know each other and to encourage each other to do great things. Each student’s level of confidence is raised through the process, and each feels like he or she belongs to something great. Helping students come to that realization is not a job, it’s a choice.
Linette Smith is Eastglen High School’s head of fine arts and directed the school’s production of The Princess Bride.
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