Thursday, May 31, 2012

High Drama on the Plains

We have a rich theatrical life in our homeschooling community, thanks to a couple of dedicated families. A summer back-yard drama camp has turned into a yearly week-long drama camp, complete with costumes, props, a stage, music and around 80 participants and this year includes a 2 week musical, with choroegraphy.

It's usually pretty busy during drama camp and this week was no exception- 2 hours of rehersals in the a.m.- the kids are each in a different play and I'm directing the 3rd graders. Then park time for lunch and playing, and, since everyone's hanging out together anyway, we've had lots of kids coming and going, and even a birthday party thrown in. Today is dress rehearsal and photo ops, with all casts in full costume. Tomorrow the play's the thing. Except for the musical, which will rehearse for another week.

In January, around 50 homeschooling high schoolers head over to a university stage to participate in a One Act Play competition. Loads of fun. Another result of the backyard drama camp- the kids wanted more competition, and another reason to perform. It started out with 1 play and has evolved into 3-5 plays each year, with a theater full of supporting characters.

And in July, approximatly 40 high schoolers, a group of creative Moms and our fearless leader, Enak, do Shakespeare in the Park. It's 2 hours of high drama. We L.O.V.E. this almost more than the all of the other dramatic possiblities. My kid(s) get their drama fix while perfecting all sorts of rhetorical skills, under the skilled leadership of a real lit nerd and educator par excellence. Can't get much better than that!

I'll be back later today to post pictures!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our homeschool group planned to do a play this year, but we ended up rather stymied for materials - since many cost $$ to use their scripts. What do you guys do for materials/scripts?

laughinglioness.lisa@gmail.com said...

We've adapted fairy tales, fables and myths on our own. Used materials we've paid for and charged everyone to participate, used materials from Logos School (they have a booklet with several myths for large casts- don't know if you can still get it or not), looked at "Plays" magazine for scripts to use for free.
hth ; )