"Middle School the Musical"...Director's Notes from the program

"I was sitting in front of my computer last March, after our 2015 show “Once On This Island,” trying to figure out what musical to do for 2016. I start thinking about the next musical quickly because there’s always a void when a show ends, and I like to fill it with the imaginings of what the next year will bring! I realized with pride and sentimentality, that the 2016 school year would bring our first KSA 8th grade graduation as we are finally fully grown! I had the privilege to be one of the six founding teachers at KSA in 2012.  

With this in mind, no shows I read about on the Internet seemed to inspire me. I began imagining a show that was about daily life in middle school FOR middle school actors. There weren’t any shows I saw, that deal with that strange adolescent place where you’re not a child anymore, but you’re also not an adult. Adolescence is a time when you feel the weight of adult problems, like lack of parental support or tax payers not funding school arts, as well as the kid problems like not being allowed out of class when you REALLY HAVE TO PEE! So I began to write. I wrote and wrote until I had a story about five characters: a misunderstood bully, a new kid, a kid with a random brain, a sporty kid who secretly loves books, and a girl finding the confidence of her voice for the first time and wanting to create something in a school that doesn’t provide her the opportunity to do so. I wrote a play that supports, well, … plays and creating! KSA is unique in that we have a music program (thanks to Ms. Moore’s vision for the school!) AND theatre, whereas many of our surrounding schools in this neighborhood, like the fictional “George Washington Carver Middle School” in our play, sadly do not. We need to fix this for our nation’s kids. SOON.

Our hope is that you walk out of the show tonight with a new understanding of the abilities of middle school students. Do not underestimate the power of an empowered adolescent. I have watched them grow in this rehearsal process (the 8th graders for four years!) and observed the amazing ways theatre allows for providing confidence, social/emotional growth, creativity, interdependence, the empowerment of voice, and the realization that they are part of a whole and the whole is greater than themselves as an individual.

To my 8th graders. What a ride this has been! We founded a school and a theatre program together. Remember when we were just a school of 5th graders chanting the 50 States song I made up? We’ve seen Shakespeare plays, (over 6 times!), watched shows around the city, put on our own, spent summers reading at the beach and the park, talked about what it means to share art, share the stage, and tell your story. I hope you remember that your own story is of great value. And I hope you tell it. To my 8th graders I say, “Take greedily, give generously,” and always, always, always “allow yourself to take risks and play no matter who sees.” I wish you a lifetime of creating and imagining. You mean a lot to me and I will miss you very much."