The Finale!

I will apologize before I conclude this particular topic I realize I have not cited sources that show the middle school side of theatrical programs. However I will point out that even though most of the sources did go towards high school some of the sources like licensing and benefits do have their play into middle school theatre programs as well.

Over the past week I have been exploring the benefits of theatre programs in schools and the hindrances they face, I have come to the conclusion that the benefits of a theatre program will vastly outweigh the hindrances it faces as well as costs going into it. Going forward I recognize that not all students will go into acting or even any part of the theatre program, and that's fine this isn't the only extracurricular activity that can benefit a student or the school it's simply the one that I have chosen to discuss. I still want to research the benefits of theatre programs to high school students, it's something I never had thought about much before and I still want to explore it.



I haven't yet found exactly what budget cuts do occur that cause the cuts in theatre programs we commonly see and I do hope to find that soon just to get the bit of curiosity out of the way. I'm still thinking about what other effects a show has on students, due to some shows being so emotionally based do some students actually experience a growing process during these shows? Or rather more aptly worded do they discover more about who they are at a younger age because of the shows they've performed? Looking back to my high school theatre career I probably did end up changing and gaining some skills from the shows I was involved in from my first position as a lighting technician to now starring in shows entertaining decent sized audiences and meeting many amazing performers. For now it is the curtain call so the curtains are closing and the stage lights are going down, but maybe I'll come back for another show or two.

How much does it cost?

While exploring the hindrances schools face with theatrical productions the main thing that came to mind is money. Given the fact that most shows schools want to do are often student versions I decided to look at one of the major theatre licensing companies like Music Theatre International (MTI for short) to see if a school version of certain musicals would cost less than regular version.

So on MTI there is a slight problem that it will not show me the prices without being a registered member. However it did bring up some interesting facts I had not thought about going into this topic beforehand. MTI provides an itemized list at the bottom of their page on the materials provided and recommendations on cast size. Due to the lack of information provided by the website I interviewed a local director at the Harrington Arts Academy in Northern Colorado, Brittany Harrington was the director of several productions at this academy her list of shows includes The Butler Did It, Rent, Godspell, and Into the Woods, since the shows are so different I was offered a range of what these usually cost to produce. All of the scripts except the one for Butler were rented from MTI the total rights had cost anywhere from $3,000-$5,000, when I asked what that total cost was for it broke down to rental of the librettos was a majority of the cost, however past that even the direct wasn't sure. This makes me wonder where does the rest of the cost comes from and how do they make up for the rest of those thousands of dollars.

While browsing through some sources I came across Copyright Crash Course the information they had provided broke down how a show makes its money back for the theatre. The items it looks into are the title of the show, location of the performance, if there is a producing organization involved, seating capacity, ticket pricing, is this for a non-profit or a profit group, number of performances, and performance dates. All of these things put into consideration from MTI and Copyright Crash Course I believe that the reason a school is willing to shell out the amount to get the rights for a show is because of the factors in copyright crash course usually focusing on medium priced tickets and large seating capacity to make back the money on rights within a shorter performance time.


For example this cast of Godspell, which incorporated middle school, high school, and some college aged students, ran for 3 weekends charging $12-$15 per ticket with 8 showings with an audience of roughly 70 audience members per night, this show over its run made roughly $8,400 before expenses were considered.

Controversy! Scandal! Music?

In my last blog post I started researching the benefits theatre programs have on high school and middle school aged students. Going out of the order of my original blog post I will now be touching on the hindrances these programs face with the controversy around the shows that they choose. What comes to mind when we think of a controversial show? One of the most widely accepted controversial shows since it's original play form back in the 1800's is Spring Awakening dealing with topics like sex, teenaged pregnancy, abortions, suicide, and disregard of authoritative figures, then in 2007 it was adopted into a muscial that's still considered widely controversial by most of the theatrical community.

However most of the controversy surrounding shows at least at the high school level centers around Rent. For those of you unfamiliar with Rent it is a show set in New York in the early 1990's focusing on the lives of a struggling film maker, a just out of rehab rock star who is living with AIDS, a school teacher expelled from NYU for promoting the focus on AIDS, a drag queen in love with the school teacher who also has AIDS, a homosexual female lawyer, a rather flirtatious diva hopeful, and a young stripper who falls in love with the rock star who is also a heroin addict. Needless to say at a high school level it's quite certain most parents will flip. The main reason for the controversy is that in the high school version the only thing censored within the show is the use of swearing. In an article I found in the New York Times it was actually noted that when the high school version of this show was about to go up in California, Texas, and West Virginia they were all cancelled due to the administrative board and parents feeling uncomfortable with the content in the show.



Some productions, like the one pictured above, are school versions of the show (this particular production was in May and June of 2012).

Actually according to a list found in the Educational Theatre Association's website Rent was primarily cancelled or banned from some areas in 2008-2009 due to varying arguments by school administrators. While going through both of these sources I've begun to question why some theatrical productions are censored. Obviously in high school we're not going to send the students up on stage to have any nudity or swear without purpose in the show, but why is subject matter censored? If they really want to censor subject matter then they would have just as easily censored Shakespeare. Now is controversy on topics the only reason shows are hindered? Of course not, there is a financial issue as well, but that will be covered in the next post.

Will they benefit?

I will note before the rest of this post is read that I had experienced some difficulty finding resources surrounding the age ranges I was focusing on, most of the points by the sources cited do focus on high school students however not a lot was found for middle school and some of it focuses towards college.

I've noticed when people have asked me why I like doing theatre or what it's done and doing for me I don't have a straight answer, "I enjoy it," or "It's fun for me to do," are my two usual answers. So I started looking at some studies about what theatre programs have done for students. I found a broad range of things that students have benefited from, one of the most notable which sadly fell out of the age range for this blog but I will mention anyway was a way to teach illiterate students a new way of reading in elementary school.


Alright enough pretty pictures for now, Louis E. Carton mentions that theatre students have 25 distinct skills that a lot of employers out of high school and college look for, the most notable of which being oral communication and time budgeting skills. Yes I know we seem like most of the time we are just sitting on stage singing a song, doing a dance, and looking good in a dress (yes even us guys), but when it is taken into account what all we must learn in just two months or less once everything is broken down the time budgeting is pretty important when it gets to the casting. Often lead characters have roughly one half of the dialogue in a two hour show (basing off averages of what most shows do run for) this has to be read, memorized, placed on stage, and mixed with choreography and any singing by a day they have to be off of book which is usually 3-4 weeks after the show has been cast, in this case the actor may only be in a rehearsal two or three days out of the week meaning they have to have this all memorized and good to go by just 8 days of actual theatre time. I know this seems like a lot of time but when you realize an average rehearsal is only 2 hours with most of the scenes possibly focusing on other actors the actors have to take time in their normal day to memorize all lines and practice in their own environment.

For oral communication, that should be pretty self explanatory, I mean really all actors do is talk on stage. After going over both of the articles I think that these benefits, while Carton's article caters more towards finding careers after college, can hit the high school age range as well. Even though in some areas theatre can become a required literacy based class the benefits are still there with having to build a set, learn their lines, perform on a stage in front of hundreds of people in the course of a show, and work with a team for weeks on end these skills should still be able to benefits them throughout the rest of the high school career and later in life.

These are only some of the benefits offered to students within theatre programs, again I did have some issues finding the age ranges I really wanted in this part so to make it up here's another pretty picture (poster...thing)



Woodson, Stephani Etheridge. "Creating An Educational Theatre Program For The Twenty-First Century." Arts Education Policy Review 105.4 (2004): 25-30. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Lights up Curtains Open(on high school theatre)

What is theatre to a student? Is it a grade? Is it a passion? Is it a good way to get some numbers in your phone so you have something to do over the weekend besides “doing homework?” All of the above are usually somewhere in the mind of a school performer. However it seems more and more now we see theatrical programs being phased out of schools as budget cuts towards art programs get more severe. I personally have been doing theatre for 5 years now starring as Judas in the hit(overdone) musical Godspell, also the sinister and rather creepy Big Bad Wolf in Into the Woods, and now most recently playing Otto in Spring Awakening. During my high school acting streak I never played too many big parts, often getting put into the chorus as roughly five different characters, looking back on it though I wonder what benefits it could have for a student. Being out of high school now and a couple of years into college it would probably be a bit too creepy for me to go back and do shows in school so I’ll let statistics and fun colorful graphs show you everything.

Before we go forward I am not claiming to be an expert I do this for fun, I am not an advocate for theatre in schools but I am not against it I’ll be getting statistics and studies wherever I can. If time permits I will also be finding posters from old shows and videos as well.

 

Okay fine a 2011 isn't that old for a poster but it's my blog I get to choose the fun pictures.

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring what theatre does for students involved in an age range from middle school through high school, what sort of revenue the shows bring in on average over the course of a year, and what hindrances it faces with either budgeting or controversy surrounding shows.