Welcome back to the 2019-2020 school year! Looking forward to seeing all my students again this year and welcoming new ones to this school. There are exciting projects this year for theater and I'm looking forward to creating with everyone. This year's projects include:
3rd Grade - Puppets 4th Grade - Shakespeare 5th Grade - Mime and Improv 6th Grade - Lunar New Year 7th Grade - Monologue Study 8th Grade - Magical Stage Fight This year, I'll be updating my newsletter per quarter so stay tuned for jam packed newsletters!
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3rd GradeIn the short month of April, students have practiced their blocking on stage multiple times and taken their scripts home over Spring break to memorize their lines. Many students returned having all their lines memorized! Great job!! At the end of the month, students started rehearsing with practice masks. Moving on, students will be using the masks they created with Mr. Askew in rehearsal! 4th GradeI don't have 4th grade anymore, but their love for Shakespeare didn't end with not having theater anymore. On April 5th, Shakespeare To Go theater company came to present Macbeth to them! The company was impressed at how good they behaved and the students were so excited about the performance. Some felt the show was amazing and others continued to ask about the performance including how were the witches in the play turned their cool lines into a song. The company was most impressed about how a student from 404 made the connection between the red coat being a symbol of the crown. Since, there was no crown for the king in the story. Looking forward to seeing these students again in 5th grade next year! 5th Grade5th Graders are finalizing their mime stories - adding props and set details to their stories. Students set rehearsal goals and gave feedback to each other in a feedback cycle similar to writing an essay in ELA class. After writing the first draft of the essay, students share their work to get feedback, then edits their work, and share it again for feedback again. Their final draft of their essay would be the strongest of all the versions they've written. Similarly, in theater, the students go through an editing phase where they share their work for the class, then get feedback from their classmates, and go back to incorporate the feedback they received in their next rehearsal. 7th Grade7th Graders had a super short month due to testing and spring break. Students took the skeleton of the scene they sketched out in March to write some original lines for their scene. They worked on their scene for a few classes before rehearsing their scenes and sharing them for feedback in front of the audience. Like 5th graders, they engaged in the feedback process to further refine their scenes. On April 30th, teaching artists from The New Victory Theater came to do a workshop with 7T2 before seeing Around the World in 80 Days next month. They'll be back again on May 21st after they see the play. So exciting! 8th Grade8T1 had their stumble through this month after coming back from the break. This month, the students have been finishing up their tasks in the auditorium on Tuesdays. They are really coming together and it looks great. 8T2 haven't had many meets with Mr. Kevin this month due to testing, trips and spring break so the project has been on hold while students worked on other theater skills in the class. The scenes that were recorded last session have been typed out into script format. In our next step, Mr. Kevin will add additional prompts into the script to further develop the script. Our performance of Gentrification will be very interesting indeed! Next month, we will also go on a trip to see To Kill a Mockingbird. Very exciting! 3rd GradeThe 3rd graders are working hard learning their blocking and lines for their play. Aside from performance skills, students are also learning about what blocking is (movement of characters on stage) and how to take notes on their blocking in the script. It looks like secret theater language! For example, if a character needs to move from their position to downstage center, they would write: X DSC! That means they need to cross to downstage center. They also learned what the different parts of the stage are called. These are essential things students need to learn to develop themselves into strong performers. 5th Grade5th grade wrapped up unit #1 at the beginning of this month with a end of the unit reflection. Then, they started working on their mime technique for the rope, wall and objects. Although it looks simple when watching professional mime acts, students are challenged to keep their ideas simple. Take a look at 503's tug a war! 502 is continuing their scenes in the museum and expanding and adding details to the museum. Check out how each "room" in the museum comes to life! Hall of Dragons Hall of Unsolved Mysteries Room of Egyptian Artifacts Room of Elements Room of World Wars 7th Grade7th Grade started their observations for their secret project. They gathered a lot of details and turned them in. They were a blast to read! They learned how to create a character walk using a character center (head, chest, hips or knees). We started a lesson on voice and proper projection techniques. They also learned a vocal warm up and the 3 vocal placements. Moving onto next month, students will be bringing their characters to life and creating scenes for them! 8th Grade8T1 designers are working hard to create all the pieces needed for our show. Sound designers began their research this month to find pre-recorded sounds that would work for their design plan. Light designers learned to sketch out a light plot that shows where the lights are on stage. While the positions of these lights aren't what they planned out, it is an essential skill that they will need in high school theater classes. They're getting a head start! Costume designers were given costumes pieces from the actors, and an abundance of trim, cloth and other detailing from Ms. Luong to start building the costume for each character. Set designers are on a roll creating their set pieces. They taped, glued and painted the stove! Producers are working on two posters at the same time - they're the same layout but colors are different. They're planning on making it three-dimensional as well! Stage Managers started putting together all the documents and lists that are needed for planning and organizing. They started working on creating the Stage Manager's Prompt Book - which is literally the bible of the production!! Actors are working with the directors to learn their blocking this month. 8T2 is continuing their work with Kevin this month. They were introduced to Banksy's work. He is a street artist who paints in cities that have political and social commentary. The students identified the particular piece of work below as a commentary on Gentrification. So together, we created a scene with a family whose expressing their worries about how the changes in their neighborhood is effecting them. From here, we will be building more scenes to track the family as they go through these changes in their lives!
3rd GradeNow that 3rd grade classes know the play they will work on, they learned about creating character using physicality. They learned about the 4 centers that they can use (head chest, hips, knees) to create their character. During an activity for the students to demonstrate their character walk, students showed a lot of creativity in their movement. This month, students also made tableaus to show their ideas of additional scenes and characters for their story. See the pictures below for their tableaus and ideas! The casting was done based it. Next month, they will start out finding out what their character is in their play! 5th Grade5th grade classes are building basic but essential skills for theater class. Everyone so far has been working diligently together and been overall respectful to each other. Moving forward, they will be challenged in every class to continue practicing these collaboration skills. 502 is working with teaching artist, Kevin Ray from Lincoln Center on devised theater. It will be interesting to see how our performance piece will shape together in these sessions with him. Keep checking for updates. 7th GradeI'm proud of 7T2 for taking bold action and opening up in class about themselves. It seems that our ensemble building unit is helping the class build trust and form strong bonds with each other. I'm proud to see everyone taking the activities seriously and being respectful to each other. Next month, we will be wrapping up this unit to start our very first project together. Since the project has an element of surprise, not much about it can be revealed. However, the class is extremely excited about it and I can't wait to see what they come up with. 8th GradeActors and crew in 8T1 started their production process. There's so much planning involved! Set designers have started using our collection of cardboard boxes to arrange and organize them into set pieces. Costume Designers are still designing the characters' costumes. There are so many characters to work on! Light and Sound designers learned what light cues are and created a cue list as well as entered the cues into their script. Directors finished up on their blocking notes in their script. Actors memorized most of their lines and are nearly off book. Producers are working on the show posters which are hand drawn and colored. Soon, they'll be putting it up around school so keep an eye out!
Teaching artist Kevin Ray is working with 8T2 on a devised theater piece with the theme of "Annoying New York." Students started creating tableaus about something annoying about New York. They used all the Elements of a Strong Tableau that they learned in the previous project with me. So I'm proud to see them use prior knowledge in their work. They also added a line of thought for their character. 3rd Grade3rd grade students explored story options for their next project - Masks! They voted on the options and the following stories are the stories they will be working on. 301 - Anansi Returns 302 - The Selfish Giant 303 - The Trickster in the Underworld 304 - The Three Tests 345 - Frog and Toad Shivers Curious about what each story is about? Stay tuned! The students will be expanding the stories as well so they will be unique to the class! 4th GradeGoodbye to my 4th graders! It's been such a wonderful half a year with 4th grade. In the last month together, 4th grade explored Shakespeare's sonnet #18. A couple of classes even wrote their own sonnet using the same structure and rhyme scheme! In our last class together, 4th grade expressed their favorite memory in theater class by tossing a ball of yarn to each other to take turns. This creates a web in the middle of the circle. The web symbolizes our connection with each other, and our learning. At the end of the activity, students cut a piece to keep for memories. 5th GradeWelcome to theater 5th grade! In January, we've only spent a couple of classes together but already I can see the talent and excitement in the room. More on their work coming soon! 7th GradeGoodbye to my 7th graders and hello to a new class of 7th graders! The last classes with my 7T1 went by quickly as we explored ensemble building skills with activities like Zombie, Number Mystery, and Elf Giant and Wizard. We ended the class with The Web of Learning where the students expressed their favorite learning experience in theater class. They do this by using a ball of yarn and taking turns speaking by tossing it to each other. When everyone is finished, there is a web in the middle of our circle which symbolizes our connection with each other and our learning. At the end of the activity, students cut a piece to keep for memories. In our new class of 7th graders, 7T2, we started our first unit of lessons on classroom expectations, rules and ensemble building. I can already see that the class works well together so I look forward to working with them! 8th GradeComing back from our break, class 8T1 have started their design process for their production. The cast and crew are as follows:
Producers: Tiffany, Wilson, Ramy Directors: Jacob, Lucas Costume Designers: Sarah, Omnia, Damaris, Jeanine, Renee Lighting Designers: Anas, Jeremy Sound Designers: Bahaa, Jackie, Ebdurauman Scenic Designer: Samuel, Melanie, Samantha M., Erjon Actors: Bilal, Electra, Adam, Amer, Samantha D., Selma, Abdessamad Stage Managers: Jodie, Efrain In preparation for our guest teaching artist, Kevin Ray from Lincoln Center to come work with 8T2, we have been working on mini projects that help solidify the student's ability to collaborate and keep the flow of creativity running. This month, they've worked on creating tableaus (frozen stage picture) of a scene! They came out so dynamic. It's amazing how much story could be told even though it's frozen! |
AuthorMs. Luong is the Theater Arts teacher at PS/IS30. Archives
March 2019
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