BridgeUP: For Upper Valley Area Schoolkids, The Show Goes On
273 schoolchildren in 10 Upper Valley area schools are learning the art of theater from 10 teaching artists and the works of 1 playwright—William Shakespeare. After a near-decade* in local classrooms, Northern Stage’s BridgeUP continues to work its magic.
Teaching artists with extensive experience engage in a five-week residency with a whole grade of students, involving everyone, not just the theater-lovers. Residencies explore text, acting techniques, history, and team-building, and culminate in a final presentation of a scenes from a Shakespearean play. Students read the play, analyze the relationships, audition, learn text analysis, practice blocking, memorize lines, and master props and costume pieces. Students perform for their entire school and then a performance for friends and families in the Byrne Theater of Northern Stage’s Barrette Center for the Arts with professional support of lights, sound, and basic sets and costume pieces. (Scroll to the end to see this year’s performance schedule that begins on May 6.)
Kate Kenney, director of BridgeUP, has dozens of stories about what this theater residency brings to students. She shared just one, about a student who struggled in school and was reluctant to participate, asking for only a small part. Despite his initial reticence, he grew more confident, and skilled, as the weeks went on.
“On the night of the performance at Northern Stage, he just glowed during his part, and said his lines loudly and clearly. Later his parents told me he wouldn't go to bed because he was so proud and excited about what had happened - he stayed up reading the script over again. And the end of the story is that he told his parents he wanted to do another play in the future!”
This year’s season will culminate in a week-long festival of performances at Northern Stage’s Barrette Center in White River Junction, VT, from May 6 to 10. The public is warmly invited; no tickets or reservations are required. All performances begin at 6:00 p.m. and run until approximately 7:30 p.m, with two different 30-minute performances each evening.
Pick an evening, bring a friend, have dinner after in WRJ and discuss the Bard. Here’s a schedule:
Monday May 6th - Dothan Brook School (The Tempest) and Westshire Elementary (Macbeth)
Tuesday May 7th - Sharon Elementary (Macbeth) and Cornish Elementary (Hamlet)
Wednesday May 8th - Plainfield Elementary (Hamlet) and Samuel Morey Elementary (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Thursday May 9th - Woodstock Elementary (Macbeth) and Newton Elementary (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Friday May 10th - First Branch School (Twelfth Night) and Newbury Elementary(Hamlet)
*(This theater program began in 2016 as Shakespeare in the Schools. In 2018, it morphed into BridgeUP under the auspices of the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation. It is the Brown Foundation’s only theater program of its kind. Now-director Kate Kenney was in from Day One “. . . with Eric Love, when he and I were a team and taught in 2 schools (a 4th grade and an 8th grade at Dothan Brook School and Hartford Elementary respectively) and quite literally made up the curriculum as we drove to class each day based upon what had occurred the day before. It was a wild and wonderful start . . .”)
(Photos by permission of Kate Kenney)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.