Casting a play

We just cast the spring musical, "High School Musical, Jr." by David Simpatico.  We had two days of auditions, two hours a piece, and we had over fifty students who auditioned.  What I realized through this process is that most kids these days don't know how to audition for a play or a show.  They don't read the directions about how to do it, so they come to the audition completely unprepared.  Well, let me teach you all how to prepare yourself for an audition for a musical.

First of all, check the website, and familiarize yourself with the music and story of the play.  Check out all the characters, and choose some that you think you might want to audition for.  If you can, watch a version of the show on youtube, and listen and study the songs from the show.  Prepare a song that you know will show your voice and will show the directors what you can do, range, emotions, preparation, diction, pitch, and expression.  Make sure you know the song cold before you go into the audition.  If it requires accompaniment, bring the score with you, or bring a karaoke accompaniment.  Study the "sides" if they are offered on-line.  If not, take a moment before you begin to read your part and study what is happening at that point in the play, and what your attitude and emotions need to be.  Smile, and sing confidently, and warm up before you go in, if you can, even in the bathroom for a few moments. 

When you are cast, be grateful that you were chosen among all the other people for that part.  Make a commitment to something bigger than yourself and your ego.  Every year many students are disappointed with the parts they get, and they up and quit before the first rehearsal.  In all the plays and shows I have been in in all these many years, I would never in a million years question the director's choices on casting their shows.  I don't know where this arrogance comes from, but I am unfamiliar with it, and it irks me and truly worries me for the next generation's possibilities for success in the world.  I am hoping someone reads this blog, and learns from this and thinks about the success of the whole production, instead of always about themselves. 

Last Day of School Before Christmas Vacation..another complaint

I am very annoyed at the amount of competition that has descended upon this school in the last few months.  The teachers have taken over "Spirit Week" for the week before Holiday Break, and all of a sudden it is one competition after another.  You are supposed to bring in a picture of yourself when you were a baby so the kids and teachers can guess who it is.  I have no baby pictures of me because I don't know what happened to them as my mother is gone.  I don't like this, it makes the teachers seem too familiar, and lacks professionalism.

 I don't like these other competitions either, the "best door decoration" is another one of the competitions.  Why isn't it enough for people to be happy in the season and to add some color and joy to their doors, instead of making it mine's better than yours and so forth.  I think this is contributing to the angst, anxiety, lack of compassion, anger, lack of a sense of community or caring towards others.

But the thing that has bothered me the most in the last few weeks is the fact that they have summarily done away with the Holiday Concert during the morning of the last day of school before Holiday break.  I am so sad about this, it has been such a tradition for years at this school.  Instead, there will be a "pie in the face" contest, and there will be some people running around in Grinch costumes, and there will be some loud yelling and screaming, in the name of "school culture".  This smacks of a lack of vision on the one hand and a lack of leadership on the other.  Does no one realize that the holidays should be sacred?  I am all for making school culture a priority, but it comes from an organic and quiet place, not a lot of people making jokes about "flash mobs" during the chorus songs.  Not appropriate, not funny, and really cruel. 

I remember fondly, and will for a long time coming, the days when the last day before the Christmas break began with advisories giving gifts to each other, and a team breakfast.  Then we listened to the Choral Singers from YHS as they strolled through the halls singing Christmas carols to all of us.  Right after that we all gathered in the gymnasium where the jazz band was first playing, then the choruses all sang a number a piece, and then the bands all played pieces.  We had the ugly sweater contest, and that was fun, but controlled.  We all went off to lunch and recesses after that, and in the afternoon we watched a quiet movie, or we decorated our gingerbread houses or we read stories about the holidays to the children as they dreamed of already being home for the holidays and playing with their siblings, and toys and making cookies to leave out for Santa Claus that night before Christmas.  Where are you Christmas?  Where did you go? Why have you stolen our tradition??

 This is how I feel, and I hope someone actually reads this and thinks about what they have done to destroy the last beautiful tradition that we had in this school.  Amen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J3XG0ZRcdU

A Minor Frustration

I understand the importance of connecting curriculum to "real life".  I understand how essential it is that students become immersed and engaged in what you need them to do, and that if they are engaged they will be more successful in your class.  I get that, and I work really hard to make sure I have really amazing, varied ideas for curriculum, and I am always looking for ways to make what I do better. 

Here's what I am frustrated about.  I sang an old American folk song with the students last week, and we talked about the meaning of the song.  It is about two people who are somehow separated for whatever reason and can't be together anymore.  The person singing the song is really sad about the person who has left.  What I have them do is write a letter to a person that they have known that is no longer here, or that they rarely see, or who has died, or who they argued with and no longer talk to.

It seems to me that this is an organic, hands-on, life-affirming, real life assignment that will teach students how to communicate their feelings about one another.  All of a sudden, I have had several students ask me "Why are we doing this?"  I thought this was a music class?  Why are we writing in music class?  I am sorry, but it seems to me, you need to talk about music and write about music, and figure out how music relates to the outside world so that you can be a kinder, gentler, more compassionate, sensitive, strong, thoughtful person.  I am tired of swimming upstream in this particular case, and I am sick of being questioned at every turn.  I will leave you to think on this and to think about what Plate said about music:

Teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly, music, for the patterns and all the arts are the keys to learning. Plato.

I rest my case.