CREATING
conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work
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Creating with Young Adults | Culturally Responsive Drama | 12 Plays for High School that are not Our Town
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In this section, I will detail some of the artistic and educational work I have created over the past 15 years as an arts educator and director. As previously mentioned, I taught High School Theatre for 11 years and have directed over 20 full-length plays. When I first accepted the teaching job at School of the Future in 2010, there was no theatre program at the school. I was tasked with the challenge of developing and implementing my entire curriculum for students in Grades 6-12. I wrote lesson plans, unit plans, and acting workshops, and fostered collaborations with theatres around NYC. I taught character study, physical theatre, improv, playwriting, stagecraft, musical theatre, storytelling, and Shakespeare-- all with my original curricula.
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I had the freedom and autonomy to turn my program into the stuff theatre dreams are made of. (In an inexpensive way, of course!) The artistic future of these students was in my hands. I thought about what materials I wanted to share with them, how I wanted them to view the arts, and which playwrights and scholars I wanted to introduce. The result was a program that fostered diversity and inclusion. I wrote lesson plans that were student centered and often gave them freedom to write about their own lives and to create work with personal meaning. Yes, I still included some classics, but Othello and Desdemona weren't just fictional characters from the past. They were their friends who, despite their love, were unable to be together because of a racial divide.
In terms of live productions, I purposefully chose plays with deeper social meanings. I am a passionate believer that theatre can bring about social change, and I am constantly striving for work that can bridge diverse communities and implement social awareness. To quote Augusto Boal, “Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society” (1992). In this vein, I would like to particularly highlight my production of the Pulitzer Prize Winning play, Clybourne Park. The play is a razor-sharp satire about the politics of race. In response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Bruce Norris set up Clybourne Park as a pair of scenes that bookend Hansberry’s piece. These two scenes, fifty years apart, are both set in the same modest bungalow on Chicago’s northwest side and both are full of social issues such as racism, sexism and and gentrification.
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To foster our learning and performing of this play, we read A Raisin in the Sun and used monologues and scenes to help with our character study. Students wrote original scenes on racism and gentrification and even created music and art to compliment these issues. It felt provocative, yet necessary, to put on a play with such mature and current themes. (See below clip from Cylbourne Park.)
In my 10 years at School of the Future, I was able to turn the program into a robust, exciting, and competitive organization with over 50 students in each musical-- acting, singing, dancing, and running tech. Creating these productions and developing these relationships with students were some of the most memorable and rewarding times of my career.
Students performing In The Heights, May 2018.
Advanced drama students working on an original lesson plan where they devise scenes using art and music. October, 2017.
Our Clybourne Park production was groundbreaking for School of the Future as it exposed racism in our society and had young people thinking and reacting about the current themes and issues.
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE DRAMA
For much of my time teaching and learning in NYC, administrators and universities were constantly talking about teaching in a “culturally responsive” manner. I set out to discover what that means for drama teachers, and created and implemented a website dedicated to them. It seems that implementing lessons where students feel valued and empowered, focusing on empathy and ensemble in the classroom, removing the teacher from a central classroom role to the extent possible, minimizing teacher-led, whole group lessons, and actively listening are all facets of both Theatre Education and Culturally Responsive Teaching. Facilitating dramatic activities in the classroom enables teachers to more easily embrace Cultural Responsiveness. Dramatic activities are a "way in" to your students' points-of-view and voices. They are specifically formulated to help create empathy among students and promote risk-taking and perseverance. Drama Education can help establish rituals and routines to produce a space where students contribute authentically to all aspects of learning and creating. By combining drama and cultural responsiveness, a teacher can capitalize on the diversity and strengths of her students and can infuse classroom tasks with new energy and creativity.
My website (linked right) will serve as a toolkit for teachers wanting to incorporate Cultural Responsiveness in their classrooms but are struggling with the “how.” The website is packed with lesson plans, charts, and checklists that will help even non-drama teachers find a way into this important level of teaching. Culturally Responsive Dramatic Lesson Plans are ideal for teachers who want to embrace all traditions–more than simply celebrating holidays and cultural foods. If all teachers can take action and create conditions that bring key components of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to life, they will inevitably create classroom environments that reflect diversity, equity, and justice.
I was also able to utilize my knowledge of HS theatre and create a quick reference sheet for my drama teaching peers needing ideas for engaging plays for their high school casts. This compilation was helpful for teachers around NYC and beyond when deciding what play to produce.
12 Plays for your High School that are not Our Town
by Lauren Gorelov, Theater Educator, New York City, 2019
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Any respectable theatre director knows that putting on a play takes an enormous amount of work. Not just work in rehearsal and performance, but the actual act of choosing what play to perform is work! As a high school theatre teacher, I’m constantly struggling with the dichotomy of choosing theatre that is relevant, engaging, and interesting for the “too cool” students of NYC, while at the same time keeping it age appropriate and innocent enough for semi-conservative parents. If theatre is boring, teenagers will not watch it. Plain and simple. If it’s outdated or too safe, students will skip it and spend the evening at the basketball game or local Dunkin’ Donuts.
Theatre is meant to challenge and excite. Theatre is meant to educate and empower. Good theatre must not only reflect the time in which it was written, but also when it is performed. So, what do teenagers in 2019 want? Sex! Drugs! Humor! Cursing! They want stories that relate to them. They want stories that make them change their minds about something. Stories that make them laugh out loud. Stories that make them think outside the box.
And we must also keep in mind the desires of the director. Theatre educators like myself are required to adhere to certain limitations that are set upon them directing at a high school. Plays with 2 or 3 person cast can be inspiring, but its exclusive and will leave the Parent’s Association complaining. Directors also have to worry about budget and space. Plays can cost money that most public schools don’t have (let alone give to the arts!) so easy, modern costumes, and uncomplicated sets are a must.
Here is a list of plays that will keep teenagers interested in the theatre. They are all possible and provocative productions for your High School that have casts of five or more actors and simple setting and costumes. These plays almost cross the proverbial line, but don’t.
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1. From Up Here by Liz Flahive
4f, 4m / Dramatic Comedy
Kenny Barrett did something that has everyone worried- he brought a gun to school, but it wasn’t loaded! He wishes he could just make it through the rest of his senior year unnoticed, but that's going to be hard since he has to publicly apologize to his entire high school. At home, his mother is struggling with a rocky start to her second marriage and a surprise visit from her estranged sister. Funny and poignant and great female monologues.
Challenges—long scenes, risky subject
2. Stop Kiss by Diana Son
4f, 3m/ Drama
Two young women in New York meet, talk about their boyfriends, feel a growing, unspoken attraction for each other, and finally kiss. And that one innocent kiss sets off a savage gay-bashing. But even as Stop Kiss confronts the reality of physical violence, Son's imaginative, moving, and surprising comedy brings audiences -- and her principal characters -- to unexpected places.
Challenges- quick scene changes, very strong and versatile actor needed for Callie
3. Almost, Maine by John Ciriani
2f, 2m, flexible casting- up to 18/ Romantic Comedy
Welcome to Almost, Maine, a place that’s so far north, it’s almost not in the United States. It’s almost in Canada. And it’s not quite a town, because its residents never got around to getting organized. So it almost doesn’t exist. One cold, clear, winter night, as the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, the residents of Almost, Maine, find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend—almost—in this delightful midwinter night’s dream.
Challenges- Comedic timing necessary, onstage PDA
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4. Boy’s Life by Howard Korder
5f, 4m/ Comedy
Told in a series of fast-paced, sharply etched scenes, the play traces the misadventures of three former college buddies now seeking to make their way in the big city. Moving along briskly, with its mood of satirical humor brilliantly sustained, the play dissects and anatomizes the male narcissism—and protracted adolescence—which characterizes its protagonists and, in the end, makes it hilariously clear that it is actually the women who possess the qualities of "manhood" and maturity which their deluded lovers so desperately lay claim to.
Challenges- dirty “frat boy” language
5. Really, Really by Paul Downs Colaizzo
3f, 4m/Dramatic Comedy
Really Really is a startlingly funny, yet horrifying play about a group of ‘Generation Me’ college students in the aftermath of a wild campus party. When morning-after gossip about privileged Davis and ambitious Leigh turns ugly, self-interest collides with the truth and the resulting ambiguity makes it hard to discern just who's a victim and who's a predator.
Challenges- Mature themes of date rape
6. Significant Other by Joshua Harmon
4f, 3m/ Comedy
This play concerns the lives of four friends in their late 20s and their search for relationships in 21st century New York City. Jordan is single, and finding Mr. Right is much easier said than done. While surrounding himself with his close group of girlfriends, it comes to pass that the only thing harder than looking for love is supporting the loved ones around him. Through the play, the audience also meets Jordan's grandmother, coworkers, potential lovers, and his friends' future husbands.
Challenges- absolute must to have a leading male with impeccable comedic timing and presence
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7. Women and Wallace by Jonathan Marc Sherman
8f, 1m (flexible)/ Drama
This one-act play moves back in time to present memorable moments in the life of Wallace, now a handsome young man of eighteen, as he copes with growing up and trying to understand women after finding his mother dead from suicide while he was in second grade.
Challenges- mother commits suicide in opening scene
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8. Blood at the Root by Dominique Morisseau
3f, 3m/ Drama
A striking ensemble drama based on the Jena Six; six Black students who were initially charged with attempted murder in a school fight after being provoked with nooses hanging from a tree on campus. This bold new play examines the miscarriage of justice, racial double standards, and the crises in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the shattering state of Black family life.
Challenges—racial casting important
9. Clyboune Park by Bruce Norris
3f, 4m flexible, doubling/ Comedic Drama
Clybourne Park spans two generations fifty years apart. In 1959, Russ and Bev are selling their desirable two-bedroom at a bargain price, unknowingly bringing the first black family into the neighborhood (borrowing a plot line from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun) and creating ripples of discontent among the cozy white residents of Clybourne Park. In 2009, the same property is being bought by a young white couple, whose plan to raze the house and start again is met with equal disapproval by the black residents of the soon-to-be-gentrified area. Are the issues festering beneath the floorboards actually the same, fifty years on?
On Broadway, the same set of actors play in both Acts. For a High School production no actors should be double cast, giving more actors opportunities to develop and become the characters.
Challenges: mature language, racial type casting
10. Dog Sees God by Bert V. Royal
4f, 4m/ Comedy
The play reimagines characters from the popular comic strip Peanuts as degenerate teenagers. Drug use, child sexual abuse, suicide, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion, sexual relations and identity are among the issues covered in this parody of the works of Charles M. Schulz. The show cleverly disguises the identity of each character, so that the issues of the play draw more focus than attempting to guess "who's who". However, the use of these famous characters is what gives the show its emotional punch: even these beloved child characters must some day grow up and deal with a harsh reality as they find their place in the world.
Challenges: Suicide and gay themes
11. She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen
6f, 3m/ Comedy
A comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons and Dragons notebook, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. This high-octane dramatic comedy laden with fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture is a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.
Challenges: Advanced technical theatre needed- lights/sound/set
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12. Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
3f, 3m/ Drama
Prep-school senior Brandon Hardy is brilliant, athletic, popular and charming—the kind of student that makes St. Joe's School for Boys proud to call its own. However, his privileged life threatens to collapse when a disturbing videotape is found on campus. As the resulting scandal takes unexpected turns, Brandon's mother Elizabeth must sort fact from fiction from family and confront unsettling truths about her son, herself, and their life.
Challenges: Strong leading lady, gay themes