Massachusetts Cultural Council has launched a new school grant program: the STARS Residency school grants. Schools are the applicants, and grants are $500-$5,000 to pay for artists to come to your school to work with your students. Improbable Players is an MCC Creative Teaching Partner.
Apply to MCC this spring for funding for 2011-2012 to bring in Improbable Players for an extended residency of our unique arts-in-prevention sessions.Ask us more about this opportunity.
"Gotta Act!", Improbable Players' interactive drama workshop program, interweaves curriculum strands of health with those of drama and acting, using real life stories to learn about substance abuse patterns and prevention. The Players work closely with you to plan comprehensive and sequential lessons that provide students and teachers with in-depth learning. The goal is to plan a project that will have a lasting effect on the school's culture.
What's it like to try on another persona? Here, a Northshore Recovery High School drama student tries out a new character during a recent mask workshop.
a drama workshop residency with young people who are in recovery
December 2007: Over the course of the '07-'08 school year, the Improbable Players taught a series of drama workshops at the Northshore Recovery High School with a dual purpose: to teaching acting and play-making and to learn how students' insights and experiences could be transformed into scenes that would be helpful to other students and other schools.
In the opening drama workshop, Improbable teachers Brian and Chris posed a question: "If you were performing for an audience that included a younger version of yourself -- the 5th or 6th grader you once were, just before you started using alcohol and drugs -- what message would you want to get across to them?"
The students had lots of ideas of how stories could help reach audiences of young people. "I wouldn't sugar-coat things," one student said. "I want to show how bad it got - jails, institutions, overdoses. Don't lie to them. Show them the truth."
Students were motivated to imagine dramatic scenes not from their own lives, but from things that happen sometimes to people who get into trouble when they drink or use drugs. Good scenes were developed, including one that took place in a maximum security juvenile correction institution, another about eating ice cream at a detox, as well as an overdose scene from a character who battled a heroin addiction. They worked on scenes about how people can change and get into recovery. The shared stories and experiences brought about insights and intense discussions.
middle school students said
"The characters that had the most impact on me were the drunk ones, because I could see them throw their lives away by the bottle."
"I liked the person refusing the drugs, 'cause that's what I am: a drug refuser."
"My ideas changed. Yes, because I didn't know how hard it was to quit drugs until the Players came."
Here is my monologue: "I used to get drunk all the time. I went to parties and clubs. But one of my sons said, 'Daddy, why do you hate me?' That took a toll on me. So I went to rehab. Now I'm 30 days without alcohol."
Chris and Brian, actor / educators
classroom teachers said
"The health aspect of this workshop was extremely valuable--it can stop students from using drugs and alcohol."
"The students loved taking the parts and solving the problems."
"Make this workshop longer."
"our goal is to promote healthy attitudes."
Brian describes the spirit of the Players' workshop philosophy:
"We provide an alternative to beer commercials, rap videos, and a general consensus around school and in (this) community that alcohol and drugs are the ticket to feeling cool, to being accepted, and to escaping the more depressing realities of poverty and racism...
...the key to our success is that we are not out to lecture or moralize, but simply to present our own experience. Another key is that we have fun. Students jump into the exercises and scenes enthusiastically, happy to break away from classroom work and move around, get silly, get dramatic. We approach with an open mind: students create the characters and the sky's the limit as to what they come up with."
Brian and Chris taught an 8 week residency in a Boston public school in 2006. Read more of Brian's workshop description: players@improbableplayers.org
