Dear Mr. Tico, Mr. Bonilla, and all of the amazing actors and writers from El Centro, <\/p>\n
My name is Michael Clapper and I am a teacher\/cofounder at the Workshop School. We\u2019re a project based school, much like El Centro, and a group of us came down to see your performance yesterday. What follows are my notes from the performance \u2013 yeah, I\u2019m one of those guys who takes notes at a play \u2013 and these notes, along with two dollars, gets you a cup of coffee. At the end of this document, you’ll see some thoughts from my students, which are probably more valuable. <\/p>\n
First of all, I want to thank you for the invitation and applaud your willingness to do this work in public. I know plenty of folks who write poetry in coffee shops or who record songs in their basement but whose work never sees the light of day. Don\u2019t get me wrong, there\u2019s a power in doing creative work wherever you are, but the power of that work when it goes public cannot be underestimated. You took your writing, your acting, your improvising, your verbal jousts, your senses of humor, and put them on stage in West Philadelphia. That\u2019s amazing and I hope it\u2019s only the first time. I hope you appreciate the power of this step. You should all be immensely proud of yourselves and the community you made together. <\/p>\n
Second, I want to ask you the question that I would have asked if we\u2019d had more time: how does creating things change things? You can think of this question as a personal question: in writing SMOOTH, in writing CANDY, in thinking about the CRAZY PERSON ON THE BUS, how did your own view of the world shift as a result of that creative process? How does pausing, thinking, and then trying to capture what you\u2019ve seen, smelt, and heard help you think about who you are? Similarly, how does capturing a snippet of domestic life \u2013 WHERE\u2019S MY BACON \u2013 or a conversation between two women on the phone help CHANGE the way people think about things? How does capturing these voices and performing them make the world better? <\/p>\n
Third, I want to ask about how you want to get better. Mr. Tico said this was the first performance like this. There were some stunning moments. The kind of theatre that makes you stop everything. The kind of theatre that makes you pause and reconsider how you see the world. Then there were some not so great moments. How would you do this differently? How would you measure up to professional standards? How do you even figure out what those standards are? <\/p>\n
These are all questions that I, as a teacher and a human being, struggle with all the time. Whose work do I want to compare my work to? As a writer, whose work do I aspire to be as good as? With the projects we do in my class, what level do I want the work to be? Do I ask students to make Oscar worthy films or do I set my bar lower? Is it fair to demand that level of work from expert amateurs? How far should I push? How do I teach the students to push themselves? <\/p>\n
Congratulations, again, and I hope we can all continue this partnership in the future. We\u2019ll be writing plays as a group this spring and maybe we could arrange to visit or you could come and see us? <\/p>\n
Lastly, my students did the same thing and here are some of their thoughts: <\/p>\n
\u2022\tI think they did a good job for their first time. One I think I liked was every scene was real life scenarios. I also like that they wrote and directed the play. I say this because it was more power behind the acting.
\n\u2022\tYou guys did a great job. I loved Candy and the homeless person the best. I think it would have been better if there were more parts to the play because we would have had a better understanding of social justice and what social justice is.
\n\u2022\tIt was a great experience to see students take what they were going through and what their community is going through and come up with possible solutions.
\n\u2022\tI think you guys did a very good job on the social justice stories. The fact that you guys wrote it out, with personal feelings, makes it better.
\n\u2022\tThat play was cool. I think each scene itself was good but the transitions were a little distracting. I think you shouldn\u2019t be afraid to have silence or pauses to let the scenes sit. I think the process must have involved lots of brainstorming and collaboration on a day to day basis.
\n\u2022\tI really liked the video in between the different parts of the play. I also like how the video was explaining what the class was about. <\/p>\n
Congratulations to all of you! <\/p>\n
Advisory 101_201 The Workshop School <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Mr. Tico, Mr. Bonilla, and all of the amazing actors and writers from El Centro, My name is Michael Clapper and I am a teacher\/cofounder at the Workshop School. We\u2019re a project based school, much like El Centro, and a group of us came down to see your performance yesterday. What follows are my … Continue reading Public thank you for Mr. Tico and his awesome students<\/span>