The Pirates of Pelican Point

On January 13^th, students at Violetville Elementary-Middle school who participated in the Truancy Court Program’s Kids & Theater program presented a morning of theater to their families, fellow students and staff at the school. The actors were dressed in their purple for Violetville's "Purple Friday." The production included a staged reading of a play written by half of the students in the class. The other half presented a performance of the play “The Pirates of Pelican Point.”

The Kids & Theater Program was first presented last spring as an after-school program at Hampden Elementary-Middle as an arts enrichment program for students enrolled in the Truancy Court Program, who were given priority enrollment. Enrollment was opened to students from the whole school, which allowed a nice cross-section of students to work together. The spring program focused on playwriting and culminated in a performance of the original work for family and friends.

For the first sessions at Violetville Elementary-Middle this fall, teaching artist Caitlyn Joy, a local actor and playwright, and I worked with all the students on both acting and writing skills, including beginning-middle-end storytelling, improvised scenes and theater games. Then the students were given a choice to pursue either writing or acting. The writing students worked with Caitlyn to write a play through a process of improvisation, writing exercises and group discussion. The other half of the class auditioned for, were cast in and rehearsed a short play under my direction.

Each time I work with kids doing theater, I learn new things from them and about theater. The program at Violetville taught me again that when faced with challenges, kids will respond to the call. When the stakes are personally high, such as performing in front of the whole school, kids can accomplish more than they think.

Our lead girl in Pirates of Pelican Place stepped into the role one week before the performance. She took the script, went home and memorized all of her lines in just a few days. She performed in front of the whole school after having had only one rehearsal. She proved to herself that she could reach her goal, even when it seemed insurmountable. The rest of the cast supported her both onstage and off-stage. They came together as a group to give the best performance they could.

Theater has been a great match for the Truancy Court Program. Theater is a fun way for students to learn hard lessons about the benefits of responsibility, commitment and working as a group, in addition to the practical skills of speaking well in front of a group. Watching the students at the end, as they took their bows in front of the school, you could see the pride of accomplishment on their faces. As we celebrated with cookies and punch after the show, the smiles didn’t leave their faces as they received the compliments of their families and their peers. They knew they had worked hard to earn the compliments.

CFCC Sets the Stage for “Kids and Theater:” A Student Fellow’s Personal Reflection on Arts Education

Attention actors, writers, stage managers, and directors. The Center for Families, Children and the Courts is proud to announce the première of the “Kids and Theater” project!! This project is part of CFCC’s broader initiative to promote arts education in the Baltimore City Public Schools. Currently, CFCC runs a “Kids and Cameras” project which has been very successful. “Kids and Theater” will be piloted in one lucky school next spring. The program will be a ten week course where students will learn how to write and perform their own plays. CFCC will be hiring a professional acting coach to direct the program, and I will be helping with producing the plays.

Our goal is to help students in our Truancy Court Program (TCP) become more engaged in their school through the arts. This program will help our TCP students develop their writing and acting skills and their team-working skills. These skills will enable our TCP students to become more confident with themselves and their academic abilities.

For me, the arts played a vital and integral part of my education and character development. When I first began school, my grades were terrible. I had trouble paying attention in class and learning basic concepts. When my parents got me involved in band and acting, my grades began to drastically improve. I moved from the Chapter I, a program helping slower students, to an honor roll student in the advanced class.

My problems in school stemmed from a lack of engagement. The arts allowed me to tap into my creativity which I was able to use in other subjects. For example, music involves rhythms and time signatures which are useful to mathematics calculation. Acting involves memorization and comprehending a character and storyline which are useful for reading comprehension.

The arts changed my life, but I'm not the only one. According to recent studies from the Dana Consortium , students who are engaged in arts education have enhanced brain cognition¹. Students in the arts score higher on IQ tests than non-arts students. Tests also show that arts students have enhanced attention spans, greater aptitudes with language and mathematics, and are more empathetic than non-arts students.

The highlight of my artistic career was in my senior year of high school. I was a member of the DeMatha Wind Ensemble which had just won the WGMS “Young Artist in the Community Award.” As part of the award, we got to perform at the Kennedy Center. When I walked on that stage, I was in awe and disbelief. How did I get here? When I started school, I was a failure and now I was standing at the Kennedy Center – weeks before my graduation and about to go to college. Then, I realized something – I may never perform at the Kennedy Center, but the arts helped me realize that I can do anything I want.

Now, I am in my last year of law school enrolled as a CFCC Student Fellow. At our CFCC team meetings, I hear about students struggling in school and can't help but think that I was like they are a few years ago. With this new program, I hope the TCP students will be able to overcome their problems in school like I did. Perhaps one day, some of our students will go on to become actors, directors, producers, set designers, or writers. Perhaps some of our students will get the extraordinary experience like I had to perform at the Kennedy Center. What is certain is that this program will help every student realize that anything is possible and with hard work they can reach their dreams. “Kids and Theater” break a leg!

1 See Gazzangia, Michael, Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition, The Dana Foundation Press 2008. www.dana.org.