Imagine a world where Public Speaking is NOT the #1 fear!
On my Facebook feed the other day, a musical theater director complained about his high school students confronting him. Their complaint? He was spending waaaay too much time with a few students, the leads, and not giving fair attention to others. It was only one week into the rehearsal process.
Two sides of the same coin…
As an experienced director of educational theater, my first reaction was on the side of the teacher. Getting kids to commit to a rehearsal schedule is hard enough without a mutiny on your hands the first week. My friend the theater director is doing everything right to get this show up on its feet.
The first week is focused on read thrus and sing thrus. In a typical musical theater piece, 2-6 players have most, if not all the lines, spoken and musical. So sure, the ensemble does a lot of watching and listening.The next few weeks the ensemble starts learning harmonies and dance choreography. By the time you get to tech week, or opening night, no one is complaining about too much down time.
Am I the only one that loves teaching theater the first day of tech week? It’s chaos. But I love the terror in the eyes of kids that have never done a show. They cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. All they see is doom. Hence the name, HELL WEEK. But we know how it usually ends… a glorious opening night!
After my gut reaction, I started to side with the students…
As a director of highs school theater I can picture these kids. In fact I keep seeing the face of a particular student that probably had these thoughts. A lot of kids are there just to have fun. Many just to build sets and costumes. They want to be a part of something.
But quite a few want to be the lead. They want to sing, act and dance. Many are devastated when the casting sheet is posted. We can all picture the classic parent at their kid’s show, where the 6yo is so excited to play a tree. By high school no one wants to play the tree.
YES AND… IMPROV…
I know, I know, I always turn this back into a discussion about improv. Can you fault me as the artistic director of the New York Improv Theater. 😉
At some point early on in my pitch for improv in schools, I adopted the line, “With improv, no kid ever has to play a tree in the back, unless that is their choice and it serves the story.”
With Improv everyone has agency. Everyone gets to be a star and ensemble. We learn to shine and support the team simultaneously.
And improv is far cheaper than a musical. A school can hire a team like ours to introduce the art form, run a few shows, workshops, residencies and professional development programs. Then almost any teacher of parent could run a program, using us as a refresher course from time to time.
No more fear?
I will go one step farther…
If improvisation was part of every curriculum in 3rd grade, PUBLIC SPEAKING would no longer be the number one fear in the world. Millions less would suffer Social Anxiety.
Incorporating sketch comedy writing and performance into 4th and 5th grade will help tie these skills back more directly to the language arts curriculum.
As I played out in my previous article, there is a major gap between childhood play and high school. Most of the world’s problem are due to what happens to us from ages 9-14.
With Improv, not one feels left behind. Everyone gets to play. As they get older, the seriously craft-driven theater artists will still separate from the hoard of folks just having fun after school. We do it for a different reason. We go to college, and those of us that double down on the joy of process separate from those that focused on their “dreams”.
Meanwhile all those other kids will be armed with skills for corporate life or entrepreneurship. They kids not bound for college will be ready to manage retails and restaurants, but barely survive as minimum wage employees.
We might even put me out of business as a corporate trainer, because these skills would be taught sooner, to the masses. As an adult, imagine a workplace where psychology safety truly governed the office political machine. It’s not utopia, but compared to today’s world, it’s close.