Ed Theatre Mini Conference by Christine Gonzales-DeJohn

The 2012 Ed Theatre Mini Conference

By Christine Gonzales-DeJohn

The 2012 Ed Theatre Mini Conference, organized and hosted by the Ed Theatre Club Officers, was once again, a great success.  For the third year in a row, current and prospective students along with alumni of CCNY’s Educational Theatre Department gathered together for a day of professional development workshops and an opportunity to network and connect as an ensemble of theatre educators.

The day began with a “meet and greet” session allowing participants to re-connect and become acquainted with each other over coffee and pastries.  The room was a buzz with laughter and conversations of current course work, theatre projects and the challenges and successes that the participants had been encountering in their classrooms. 

The feeling of excited anticipation and camaraderie set the stage for the first workshop.  Blake McCarty the current Media Production Manager for The New 42^nd St project introduced fresh and innovative ways to integrate the classroom with social media literacy and digital communication technology, even when the technology is not available in the room. Through the use of social media inspired templates such as Facebook profiles and Twitter updates, Blake facilitated fun and engaging activities that participants could use with their students to explore character development, play analysis and the beginning stages of playwriting. 

Participants were then treated to lunch and invited to complete a “Game Share” handout detailing the name and steps of one of their favorite Theatre Games.  In an effort to create a database for the students and alumni of the Ed Theatre Department, all of the games were collected and compiled into a Google Doc that the participants would be able to access, reference and continue to add on to as time goes by.  

The Mini Conference continued with two breakout sessions, giving participants the opportunity to choose a workshop they were most intrigued and curious about exploring further.   This year, Alumni of the Educational Theatre Department, Keeshon Morrow and Cliff Campbell each facilitated a session they created specifically for the conference.   

As a theatre teacher at The Repertory Company High School for Theatre Arts, Keeshon revealed his approach to warm-ups and their priority in the classroom.  Participants in his session were introduced to a variety of different warm-ups with emphasis on strengthening the focus and energy of their students while integrating performance skills.  This lively, upbeat workshop energized and inspired its participants as they discovered and discussed how to create an effective warm-up structure and attain greater success in the classroom.

Cliff’s session was aimed at helping Theatre teachers integrate the common core standards for writing into their classrooms.  Cliff, a theatre teacher for the Uncommon Charter High School invited four of his students to present their writing and participate in the session.  The Ed Theatre Participants had the unique experience of working side by side with teens, exploring their writing and helping them to re-write and edit scenes/monologues through the process of improvisation. 

At the close of the Mini Conference, participants gathered together for a final reflection giving them an opportunity to share out their experiences and reactions to the day’s events. The participants expressed being inspired and excited by the new tools and knowledge they had gained as Theatre Educators.  They were thankful for the chance to connect outside of their Graduate coursework and spend the afternoon learning and creating with their fellow classmates. 

The Ed Theatre Mini Conference continues to be a unique and valuable extension of CCNY’s Educational Theatre Department.  Here’s to another successful year and may the tradition continue to grow for years to come.  

Family Arts Saturday by Jono Waldman

Family Arts Saturday, by Jono Waldman

Today, I was Old MacDonald.  Armed with only a ukulele and a cheesey southern drawl, I took an entire zoo worth of animals on an adventure.  There was a talkative lion, a pensive girraffe, a pair of shy pigs, a frog that was full of feck.  There were cows and horses and tigers and bears and so many other kinds of animals.  We sang together and they all took turns singing their own special animal noises.  When the song was done, we travelled around the hills, under a mountain, through a forest, and over a river.  After the animals dried off from their swim, we all lay down on the shores of the bay.  There we sang again, making up rhymes and laughing.  When the song was over, all the animals sang a lullabye with me and they fell asleep under a canopy of stars.  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty great Saturday morning.

Family Arts Saturdays occupy a world halfway between classroom and clubhouse; part reality and part fantasy.  Like in a classroom, there's sitting in circles and raising hands, there are grownups and rules.  But there is also a spark of magic and mystery.  On my first Family Arts Saturday, I appeared in role as Old MacDonald.  Sobha had brought a bag full of animal masks and after the children put them on, they practiced moving around the space as their animals.  While Rob was leading them around the room, he suddenly got a phone call from his friend Old MacDonald, who - coincidentally - was looking to do some singing with some animal friends.  I entered.  I could see a mix of skepticism and excitement in the kids' eyes, trying to figure out if I was, in fact, the same Old MacDonald they'd been singing about for so many years.

After we sang my song, we took our long journey to the bay.  Sobha had also brought a long piece of fabric which featured prominently as the mountain we went under, the stream we swam acoss, the bay we lay down next to, and even the night sky over our heads.  We sang Down by the Bay and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  As we traveled from place to place, I watched the children constructing the environment around them, imagining each location. I saw them devising entire worlds.

After the lesson, I put down the ukulele and dropped the southern drawl.  I was myself again.  Still, a month later, when I bumped into one of those same kids on Family Arts day, she came right up to me, took a long, slow, sidelong glance at my face, and said finally, "I know you!  You're Old MacDonald!"

Cecily O'Neill by Marissa Porto

A Visit From Cecily O'Neill by Marissa Porto

Before I even began taking classes in the Educational Theatre department at City College, I had heard several conversations about a woman name Cecily that came to school to run something called a process drama. All I knew was that it had something to do with young people, Lord of the Flies, and that everyone really liked whomever this woman was. Of course, it took me all of a week to learn just who she was and to become infatuated with her teaching philosophies. I was also instantly jealous of everyone that had the opportunity to see her lead a process drama in person!

                One can imagine, then, how unbelievably excited I was to hear that she offered to come back! On March 1^st, I finally had the chance to see Cecily O’Neill, who has inspired me since beginning my studies, in action! And even more, have the chance to participate in one of her process dramas, not just watch it!

                I walked into the green room of Aaron Davis Hall and the first person I saw was Cecily and I was instantly star struck. I wanted nothing more than to go up to her and tell her what a big fan I was of her work, but instead I turned into a gawking schoolgirl who lingered in the corner, wishing I were brave enough to approach her. As soon as we began the workshop, however, I realized that she is one of the most approachable and humble people I have ever met.

                The first thing we were instructed to do was pair up with someone and to describe, in detail, our bedrooms as we had left them that morning. The person listening was not allowed to ask any questions; just listen. She then instructed us to take out paper and a pen and draw the bedroom our partner described to us. To make it even more dramatic, we were to be graded on our drawing as well…

                From here we moved into new pairs and played out scenes as reporters and the very wealthy people that were showing us their magnificent homes we were writing about. Seamlessly and without even realizing what was going on, we were in the midst of an intense rumor mill that led into an hour-long process drama about a mysterious family and the skeletons in their closet. When I look back on the day, I truly don’t know how we got from point A to point B, but what I do know is that every single one of us was 100% engaged. Cecily has this uncanny ability to hold a room and gracefully usher her students through various adventures.

                At the end of our time together, we asked Cecily a million questions, which she elegantly answered. One of the participants asked “Did you have that all planned out? Or did you just have an idea of where you wanted us to end up?” To which she replied, “No. I came in here with an entirely different idea, but you all seemed so interested in the stories we were uncovering, that I felt I needed to follow you there.”

                It is that ability to follow and honor her students that makes her so unbelievably great at what she does and what will continue to inspire me. I hope that Cecily plans another trip to New York and offers to work with us again, because you all deserve the opportunity to work with this master in our field. And I will certainly continue to seek out and attend any chance I get to work with her again!

Johnny Saldana visits CCNY by Erin Jean Jewell

Johnny Saldana visits CCNY! by Erin Jean Jewell

 The City College Educational Theatre club had the honor of hosting our winter workshop with the master of Ethnodrama, Johnny Saldaña. January 21 turned out to be a snowy morning, but even Johnny, who is accustomed to the sunny weather at Arizona State University was in good spirits. The morning snow put a delay on our events, but once we got started, we hit the ground running! First, Jonny shared different forms of Ethnodrama with us...books, plays and performances. As a group we learned exactly what an Ethnodrama is and they myriad of ways it can be used to produce theatre. After creating a better idea about the different forms Ethnodrama can take, we dove in and learned how to create Ethnodrama for both ourselves and with our students. We began by simply sharing what we discussed with our peers over breakfast. Such a simple task that students could easily perform, right? We talked about winter break and places that we traveled to, people who had started dating someone new, YouTube videos that were taking the internet by storm and even about the NFL playoffs. I would imagine our conversations weren’t all that different than those of high school students!  After sharing out our conversations with partners we chose one conversation to focus on and create a small piece around. Johnny gave us room to be creative but each small scene was to be about 30 seconds each. Once we had rehearsed, these short scenes were combined with our peers in a large circle and created a small scale Ethnodrama production of our "breakfast conversation."  The results were incredible. Our morning conversation was used to create a piece about today’s hot topics. We saw that we could easily transition this work into interests of our students and then create small, meaningful performance pieces devised and performed by our students.

After lunch Johnny gave us a sheet of prompts that he would give to his students which included phrases such as - "Who was your first love," "Discuss a challenging moment of your life," or "Discuss a funny or embarking moment that has happen to you." We were first given time to flesh out our ideas and write down key moments of this event in our lives. Then we were asked to share with different partners. I chose my first love; a boy from my hometown who I had a crush on for many years. After each sharing Johnny would ask us to notice or comment on different details that needed to be included. With every sharing we would get more comfortable, our writing would get stronger and our delivery would grow to more of a performance. What started out as writing our story ended up becoming self monologues or - Ethnodrama pieces. In the end we shared out in small groups. Our stories ranged from embarrassing moments, to stories about our families and moments of triumphs in our lives. In such a short time I wrote and performed a piece that I was proud of. I shared something about my life, my first love and the memories that came rushing back with that.

 I could not believe that we came up with 2 performance pieces during our short workshop. Yes, these ideas would have to be scaffold for students, but everyone left with amazing ideas as to how we could get our students to create original pieces and use those pieces to create a performance. The power of Ethnodrama is amazing. Taking real stories, personal accounts or interviews and turning them into a theatrical production is an amazing way to share research and use the power of theatre in a strong, productive and engaging way. The day was incredibly rewarding. As a group of graduate candidates we were able to explore a new type of drama that would engage our students and allow them to create productions from topics that are on their mind daily. In the end, the snowy day left us excited about theatre education and prepared to share Johnny Saldaña's Ethnodrama work with our students. 

For pictures click here https://picasaweb.google.com/117111343359289314785/JohnnySaldana

Dear Diary by Mollie Lief

DEAR DIARY

by Mollie Lief

In an effort to both raise money for the Ed Theatre program last fall and take advantage of the immense talent among our candidates, a group of us devised a show called DEAR DIARY. Inspired by a real moment from childhood or adolescence, each actor created a mini theater piece that brought to life a diary entry. For some – like Abby Shuppy and Marissa Porto – the entries were real, discovered in parents’ attics or under beds; for others, performance pieces were spawned from memories or unfulfilled wishes, as was the case with Sobha Paredes, who sang a tear-inducing “Tomorrow” as Annie.

            Most of the candidates performed songs (accompanied by musical director, Laura Mulholland) that ran the gamut from Maurice Chevalier’s “Mimi” (Ben Posner) to Rob Dunn’s Elvis/Les Miserables number to Jeff Bance doing, well, Jeff Bance. Christine Gonzalez-DeJohn and Jessica Rosa both performed songs they love and that represented an exciting moment in their adolescence, while others, like Carrie Edelman Isaacman and Jonah LeDoux, performed monologues.

Before the show, audience members were invited to fill out a form asking for specific childhood memories (“When was the first time you felt artistic?”), which were then shared as interstitials by Lloyd Woodcock, whose anthropomorphic portrayal of the omniscient “The Diary” bound it all together. As a reminder to be inspired by who we once were and why we got into theater in the first place, The Diary assures us at the end of the show, “Those moments that once made you feel inspired or ashamed, artistic or happy, will be right here. In crayon. Where you left them.”

DEAR DIARY

Co-Produced by Marissa Porto, Mollie Lief, and the CCNY Ed Theatre Department

Directed by Mollie Lief

Musical Directed by Laura Mulholland

Devised by Jeff Bance, Christine Gonzalez-DeJohn, Rob Dunn, Carrie Edel Isaacman, Jonah LeDoux, Mollie Lief, Sobha Paredes, Marissa Porto, Benjamin Posner, Jessica Rosa, Abby Shuppy, and Lloyd Woodcock.

click here for pictures
click here for video