Creative drama teacher Phyllis Vecchia has an innovative way to get history across to sixth graders: Rather than talking about suffragettes Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony, and the abolitionist Henry Stanton, she has them BE Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony and Henry Stanton. In a rousing half-hour in Amy Reece’s sixth grade class at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School on Thursday of last week, Ms. Vecchia guided the entire class through improvised paces of the women’s rights movement from 1840 to 1860.
Compassion is not a quick fix to social injustice and prejudice in the world. It grows too slowly within people. But without compassion there is no hope of real change. And building lasting change is the true base line of Untouchable Voices, a play written by musician Tabea Mangelsdorf and actress Anna Procter.
Mrs. Baker, played by the irrepressible 10-year-old local pop diva Samantha Cassidy, wants a baby and Mr. Baker, the similarly pre-teened Oliver Carson, does not. (On alternate days last weekend these characters were performed by Danielle Hopkins and Jesse Dawson.) Mr. Baker wants a big fat, gingerbread cookie to eat. They fight/sing about it: “Food feeds all your problems unless your problems are food.”
Although most of the Island is concerned with saying hello to the birdies as spring begins to unfold, the Tisbury School seventh and eighth graders are riding against the grain by saying goodbye to the birdies.
Well, actually no real birds are involved at all. Nor pinkletinks, crocuses or snowdrops.
The art of improv is the art of saying yes. In other words, whatever is offered up during the performance by the audience or fellow actors, the main ingredient to success is to go with it.
Sounds like a sound philosophy for life or at least for getting through the tough, or merely odd moments, that pop up each day. And what better time in one’s life to embrace this message than when we are young.
The scent of mothballs had no chance to cling to Chris Abbot. Last year he retired from his teaching job, which included directing the annual school play at the Tisbury School. But only a few weeks ago, school principal Richie Smith inveigled him to return to the boards for Mr. Abbot’s third pass, rolled out this past weekend, of the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
The newly formed song-and-dance group MV Glee will debut next Sunday, Feb. 13, with a 7 p.m. show at Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.
The show includes the IMPers, IMP’s high school improv troupe, who will create a never-before-seen Glee episode based on audience suggestions.
MV Glee is directed by musician/composer Mike Benjamin and dancer/choreographer Sandy Stone Benjamin. The IMPers are directed by IMP founder Donna Swift.
A silly buffoon and a whiz kid saving the world will be the featured one-act plays performed by students from the charter school at the Vineyard Playhouse on Friday, April 1 and Saturday, April 2.
Auditions are being held on Thursday, April 21 and Friday, April 22 for ten speaking roles in Policing in America, a video project of Detrick Lawrence Productions of Edgartown. These are paid positions for filming which will take place on May 4 and 5.
Auditions are by appointment and will be held between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. at 140 Cooke street in Edgartown.
