BWW Blog: Paisley Haddad - Touring Theatre Saves The Arts In My Community!

This past fall my high school's theatre group travelled to local elementary schools to perform "Folktales For Fun", which connected folktales to different countries to teach kids all about different cultures. Some of the stories included Cinderella from Egypt (Rhodopis and Her Golden Scandals), The Three Hares (a take on the three little pigs) from Turkey, The Bremen Town Musicians from Germany, The Snake from Spain, Why Bears Have Stumpy Tails from Norway,and How Tortoise Tricked Leopard . There were two casts, so that we could make it to more schools than we would have if we only had one cast and to not miss a lot of school ourselves. Our costumes were simple, but effective. The three headed snake was portrayed by three snake hats, the turtle was portrayed by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack on my back, and many other clever animal hats. At first, I was a little curious on how the kids would respond to the play, because our teacher told the schools that it was geared toward 3rd to 5th graders. Which is always a tough audience. Once we got out to the schools, it was one of the most rewarding things that I have ever experienced.

The kids were so receptive and loved the show. The look in their eyes just showed how much their day was affected by us bringing our show to them. We went to one school, in an urban area, where they had us perform in their library, which had been very sparse of books and materials, and those kids out of anybody enjoyed it the most. They enjoyed it so much that I would have been more than happy to perform for them everyday if it made them that happy. At our final school, there was a girl that was so inspired by us that she wanted to join us on stage! She told us how much she would love to perform on a stage and at that moment I realized what an impact watching theatre or dance or sports or any activity had on a kid.

With the deteriorating Arts departments around our country and the defunding on creativity in elementary schools, it is a privilege to bring this to my community. They can discover what their calling is and pursue something that they would really enjoy. This used to be a project that our school would have every 2 years, but due to the success from this year, it is now a yearly activity. We were overwhelmed with requests, obviously there is a hunger for this type of visual learning. One 5th grade teacher even incorporated these stories into her lesson plan to expand on their learning. That's why I'm very excited for us to do touring theatre this coming year, so that we can visit more schools and bring smiles to our audiences.

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