68246 Resource 100516 12031 1 1099068667840 1250537353820 Controlled Middle School Play using melodrama is drawing many students

Starting a new drama program at Newton Middle School in Littleton, Colorado

<p>It's been a few days... maybe even weeks... since I kept you informed about my volunteer work at Newton Middle School. I decided that the school needed a drama program. Because of a lack of funding in our Littleton School District in the performing arts, a drama club disappeared from Newton. I felt that it was important to me and important to the school that I generate interest. After putting out an announcement and with the help of Debbie Getzel, the Gifted and Talented teacher at the school, we attracted close to 30 kids. Of course, some of them dropped out. That&nbsp;comes with the shifting of middle school interests. It was no surprise to me that the majority of the kids in the club happened to be girls. That's no surprise. It's quite normal for a drama club to have more girls than boys. In fact, most of our plays in Pioneer Drama Service have more female roles than males. However, many of the parts are flexible. </p><p>The most difficult aspect of the club is the limitation of time. This is because the club can only meet once each week and can only meet for an hour. To work with this I chose a large cast melodrama that was 30 minutes long. The show is THE PAPER BAG BANDIT, a melodrama by Tim Kelly. Tim was a genious when he was writing plays. When I asked him to write a 30 minute play with a lot of characters, Tim came out with this melodrama and RASCALS UNDER THE BIG TOP. </p><p>I have started rehearsals and they are going fairly well, though some of the kids have not started to memorize lines. A lot of this is because I didn't put out a decent schedule. I'm going to pull out a number of our play directing textbooks and will work on being more organized. (I've listed a number of the books below.)&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>I wasn't surprised at the high energy the kids have. However, it's working to control the after-school energy and get the kids in the same track for an hour. Things seem to be shaping up. To add to this, I started an olio group as well. This group meets on Tuesday. They are taking short comedy skits and a large variety of jokes for blackout purposes and making it into a nice selection of olios. Want to know what an olio is? Or facts about melodrama. I also have links to other sources.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> 9 application/xml false drama program melodrama Middle School Play Newton Middle School This one act play... a melodrama... has been perfect for my large cast middle school actors http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=PAPERBAGBA Here's another large cast melodrama http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=RASCALSUND This is an excellent guide to middle school theater play directing and high school play directing http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=PLAYSCHOOL For the amateur theater director, this textbook is an excellent guide! http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=PLAYDIRECT An excellent resource! http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=BETWEENHIS A video guide to basic staging with actors. http://www.pioneerdrama.com/searchdetail.asp?pc=BLOCKINGAS Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Zune 3.0) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 $Admin 67.172.146.66 false true false false true 100516 blog blogsite/PioneerDrama/web