drama club or theater in middle school / junior high

Okay, I was involved in one play in middle school (8th grade) so this might not be perfect, but here goes.

There was no drama club and the school only put on one play per year. My 6th- and 7th-grade years, they put on musicals ("Guys and Dolls" and "Annie", respectively) but my 8th-grade year they put on a play, "Sleeping Beauty and the Beast" (a mishmash of fairytales - a comedy). I had never been in a play before and I got a small speaking part with only one line, but I was honestly surprised I got even that. The competition was not especially fierce, I don't think, but there were several people who stood out, and the rest were just mediocre. Basically, if you could act decently, you got a large part, and if you couldn't act, you either weren't in it or didn't have a speaking role. It was a very small production (my school didn't even have a stage, so we put it on risers or something) and the sets weren't especially good. (This is at a school of more than eight hundred kids, but my school wasn't very good and my district is really poor. Not that many kids showed an interest in theatre at all.)

The costumes were all old except for a few and were, for the most part, very ugly, though some were better (the princess's and the king's I remember as being colorful and new(er)). All in all, my school did not show a lot of interest for the play in general, and a lot of kids (I've heard) skipped out on the play. (All kids got to miss class to see it during school.) Yeah.

All in all, one of the best experiences of my life. After realizing I can't really act well, I decided to be in stage crew, and, two years later, I'm currently involved in my third theatre production. :)

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morgail,

Just so happened that as I was reading your post, I had my daughter and her friend standing by. They are currently sixth graders and between the two of them have been in over ten plays. Every year, our community puts on two plays for kids. Our school itself does not direct these productions. Instead, our community theater puts on one. This is a community volunteer production. There are auditions, but mostly to place children in appropriate roles, rather than handpick a small cast. The sets are designed by parents and the costumes are provided by the kids themselves and are fairly simple. The second play is sponsored by the Missoula Children's Theater Company. It is a traveling troup that brings the play, the sets, the costumes and the producers. It's a great opportunity and more sophisticated. Again, the auditions are more for cast placement.

There is definitely truth in acting ability playing a part in the roles children get. Spunky, fun and energetic kids with a good memory garner the best parts. Surprisingly, there are a fair number of totally shy kids that also try out. These, along with the younger kids, get the small parts, nonexistent speaking parts or group speaking parts. As a whole, for community plays like this, the script is written to accomodate any number of kids ranging from 12-35/40. This can be accomplished quite easily by adding one more "townsperson" or a fourth "policeman."

Depending on the time frame of your novel, you can use either model. The community play practices span about six weeks and usually take place after school. The Missoula production (which you can look up on the web) sweeps in one summer Monday for auditions and ends that same Saturday with productions. Practices typically last from 8am to 4pm with a lunch break.

Both of these productions begin with 1st graders and end with 8th grade. However, depending on the difficulty, they have been known to have two "mini" plays- one for the littles and one for the bigs.

Let me know if you have any questions along the way. I would be more than happy to answer them. Right down to who does the lighting, how do sound systems work, etc...

Good luck and keep in touch if needed.

Oh yeah, there have been both musicals and nonmusicals. The biggest underlying theme has been humor that plays to all age levels, including the adults in the audience.

~Lex

In my middle school (6-8th grades), we had one musical every year. I don't know about the competition because I never tried out, but I'm guessing it was pretty intense since they had to sing. They were very big productions over two or three nights with full props, costumes, and set design.

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Ah, I could tell you many, many stories about "drama club" in middle school and junior high ...

I became involved with the drama club in 5th grade (through 6th) in middle school and I could tell even then that there was corruption in the system. The club was an after school program that met twice a week. All students had to pay the same amount to be a part of the group - $50 per play (two or three plays a year), and there were about 50 kids in the program. You wouldn't get a good role unless you knew the teachers running the program (aka: they were your teachers), regardless of how good of an actor you were. If your mom volunteered, made costumes, or contributed props and set pieces, you were also guaranteed a decent role, regardless of ability.

In 5th grade my "gifted" English/social studies teacher ran the drama club and we rarely did any actual English or social studies work. Instead, she had students helping her write the plays, which I thought was fun, but it annoyed the heck out of other students. I actually contributed significantly to the plays in 5th grade and wrote a play that was performed in 6th grade. As an eleven year old, I had already developed a sense of justice and felt that it was unfair for 50 kids to pay $50 each and for half of them to not have a single line or speaking part. So the play that I wrote featured 50 characters, some with only one line, but the play was "adapted" by the teachers which meant that half of the roles were cut. So I was an annoyed eleven year old. In 6th grade the teacher who ran the drama club began driving an expensive car and we suspected that she was pocketing half of the $50 fees.

The middle school plays were pseudo-musicals. The scripts were "original", usually borrowing characters from fairy tales or other stories, and lyrics were re-written to popular Broadway or children's music - like "The Wizard of Oz". Definitely cheesy. There was no actual theater for us to perform in. The school was brand new but the arts have never been particularly valued where I grew up so the stage where the plays were performed was actually just a stage in the gym/auditorium. Terrible acoustics, folding chairs for the parents, no real lighting or sound system, etc.

Side note - I was in talented theatre at the time and had to travel by bus twice a week to another school to attend a talented theatre program as my school did not officially have one. A couple of years later, my English/social studies middle school teacher had become a talented theatre teacher and she continued to run the after school drama program. Nothing really changed - her students still got the best roles, although this time, they were at least technically "talented".

In junior high, I was amazed to find out that there were $5 fees per student member instead of $50 and the fees lasted the whole year rather than just per play. The performances were one act plays, adaptations of Shakespeare and other classic literature - Alice and Wonderland, A Little Princess, Silas Marner (yawn), etc. At all levels of theatre, through high school, there was always a shortage of guys in the drama club so girls with deeper voices (such as myself) were given guy roles - I was the drunkard in Taming of the Shrew and the Mad Hatter in Alice and Wonderland, etc. In junior high, the after school program was also run by the junior high talented theatre teacher, but I don't remember there being as much corruption in the system. Although the senior musical in high school was a whole other story ...

In junior high and high school, the "theatre" was a cafeteria by day, stage by night. Folding chairs, bad acoustics, etc, etc. We were jealous because the older high school in the less nice part of town actually had a really nice auditorium and we had a pathetic excuse for a cafetorium. Although the other school's drama program always claimed to be broke, but they put on some really awesome performances. Our high school performances were never advertised because we didn't have a legitimate stage.

Of course, the year after I graduated, they started building an auditorium at my old high school ... the injustice of it all!

I could go on ... but I won't. ;)

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Ours was small. We had a few meetings where we played acting/improv games, and then we started auditions/practise for the play. This took about three months. After that, we had one more meeting where we played an improv game and ate food, and that was that.

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At my school, we have an actual Drama Class. Everyone in it is required to try out for the 1 play we do every spring, but the tryouts are open to anyone that wants to try out.

The competition isn't too hard, but we do have callbacks.

The Drama Class also has little mini things throughout the year, like mime day.

Last year my school did Alice in Wonderland. The year before was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I am an Arms Dealer
Fitting you with weapons in the form of words
Don't really care which side wins
As long as the room keeps singin'
That's just the business I'm in.

haha, middle school drama club. good times. :]

anyone could join, and i think everyone was given a part, since the club was fairly small the the play fairly large. my friend and i pretty much just sat and watched for the majority of the time, with iced tea and salt and vinegar chips from the vending machines. our stage area was in our cafeteria, so we were all set.

in the end, nobody really memorized their lines, since nobody really took it seriously, so we ended up not having a show, haha.
teacher: uhhh, so do you guys think you'll be ready?
us: uhhh.... no. not really.
teacher: uhhh, ok. so no play! :D

I think a lot of it would depend on the regional context. For example, in my schools in Massachusetts, there was no official drama club. It was always something interesting to see the next play because you could see any mix of people coming out of the woodwork to be drama geeks. On the other hand, in Utah where I am getting my BA, drama clubs are a major thing. I personally participated more in community theater because it was more reliable and had better directors.

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I don't know if this will help or not since it sounds like you want the drama club to be extracurricular. But, I went to a creative and performing arts junior high and high school. Everyone had to audition just to go to the school. It attracted kids from all over the city. The arts programs we had there weren't clubs, they were actual classes that we were required to take...like I took piano 2 hrs a day for 6 yrs. I loved the experience of the whole school being that kind of artsy environment, so when we put on productions, and we put on several, every class became a part of it (drama acted, choir sang, creative writing wrote it, orchestra /pianos played the music, art did the scene work). The competition wasn't so bad since we auditioned to get into the school. Everyone participated and performed parts that were geared toward their skill level. I think it was the best kind of school to go to, of course I know I'm a bit biased :)

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In my junior high, there were drama classes, but no real drama club. We put on one play in the fall and a musical in the spring. Anyone could and did audition, and I think about half the kids got some sort of part. That depended on what play they were doing, though.

Thanks everyone!! All your experiences will definitely help me create a more realistic story. :)

I taught at a combined middle/high school for many years, and it had a fairly large number of young people interested in drama. The music deparment was quite large, so the high school put on one musical a year, usually in the fall. In the spring there was a dramatic production which helped give those students with little or no interest in music a chance to be in a play. Occasionally there were parts for middle school students in the plays/musicals so it was easy to cast those parts. Music Man and The King and I were two which needed younger students, as did The Sound of Music and Oliver. Middle school students LOVED to be in the high school plays, and were always disappointed if we didn't offer a show which needed kids in it. The competition was stiff for "prime" roles - and as a director it was tough making those decisions. Actually, parents of these children can be the bigger headaches!

I was a co-director for the high school musicals and taught a drama rotation class for middle schoolers. We put on small productions for mostly elementary audiences, plays and musicals which were funny and had quirky costumes. Many were old fairy tales or myths, redone for this age group. This was a class, so all students participated in some way - from acting to painting a backdrop(large rolls of paper usually taped or stapled to a board in the back of the room), props, etc. I usually "made" everyone participate in some way in front of the audience, as I felt they needed to have experience in front of groups. Did I mention I was a middle school English and Social Studies teacher?:)

As someone else already mentioned, a community theater is another way to get young people involved. We have an active one in this area and they put on both plays and musicals. Anne Frank is a favorite, as is Fiddler on the Roof . There is also a children's summer theater run by the community theater.

It's not usually very difficult for children to get parts. Competition can be stiff for the "good" parts - ones where costumes will be spectacular, or the part is particularly funny or quirky. Middle school kids love humor - the slap-stick kind is still very popular.

Hope this helps. Ask any questions you want.

bookworm05

I've directed both HS and MS theatre and think either would be a great choice for a book. In middle school, the competition is less fierce because there are usually only a small handful of veterens. Usually, there are a few kids that trade off leads year to year. Once they get to high school, the competition thickens due to size and the willingness of talented, but untrained new-comers. There's often a little tension (at HS and MS) between the theatre veterens and the inexperienced, but skilled kid who gets a lead or supporting role.
Also, I think the middle schoolers take the audition process much harder - many take rejection personally. I think this makes many middle schoolers more dedicated. Besides that, if you want a funnier approach, many middle school theatre productions seldom make it past memorization to work on character development, but this doesn't keep their production from being a success. Hope this helps.

I'm in a middle school play right now. Our school puts on one play a year, starting auditions at the end of December and preforming in March. We do musicals, mostly comedies like Anything Goes, Guys and Dolls and L'il Abner. The competition to get in isn't that hard as they stuff the stage with as many chorus members as possible. However, there is a decent amount of competition for the lead roles but one can often guess ahead of time who'll get the role based on looks or voice type or what their area of expertise in acting is.

Usually, by midway into the show, the people with small roles are sick of the whole thing because a lot of people really don't like the director at our school. People spend a lot of time talking backstage and getting yelled at for it.

Good luck with your novel.

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We had a 6th grade play that everyone got in, it was more of a drama club. There were also summer musicals, 5-9th grade and then a separate one for 10th-12th, that everyone got a part, because we had to pay (it was more of a summer camp). 7th and 8th grade were the big musicals. We did one musical a year. The high school did a musical and a straight play, but middle school was only musicals, which bugged me, because I can't sing. The competition was tough; there'd be huge casts, but at least half the kids were still turned away. The director definitely picked favorites-- the kids who were cast in the leads in the summer musical of fifth grade were leads till they graduated from high school. Certainly there was some talent, but there were so many kids to audition, and the auditions went so quickly, that they didn't always pick the strongest actor for the role. My little sister has been acting professionally since she was five, theatre as well as commercial/film work, never joined a union because she wanted to be able to do school plays, turned away many opportunities to audition/further her career because they required an Equity card and she wanted to do school plays, got to middle school, and was consistently cast in the chorus. It was funny, but not really, because she'd be doing a show one month with a professional theatre, earning more money than kids twice her age (she even gets the occasional 'fan mail'), and then the next month pulled into the background as a 'townsperson' or 'workhouse boy' or something for the school play. In a way it's good, though, because she never was pulled into the "theatre clique," which basically consists of the arrogant, I'm-better-than-you-and-I-know-it, refusing-to-hang-out-with-the-chorus-members drama kids.

Um sorry for that rant. But that's pretty much how it works. They are a lot of fun, though, too. I was in three while in middle school. Even if you just have a bit part, you meet a lot of fun people, make a lot of inside jokes, and just goof off a lot. One thing we did at my middle school was we'd play improv games when we weren't rehearsing.

The productions were too big for middle school, in my opinion. Tickets would run $8-10 a performance, almost as much as the high school shows, and weren't great. And yet they still sold out sometimes. I actually started volunteering to play in the pit orchestra for the middle school shows so I could (sort-of) watch my sister and not have to empty my bank account for it.

I went to a 49-kid school until recently (graduated two weeks ago) and it was K-8, so we did two musicals a year. However, they were so cheesy that, as I say, "you could make a Guinness-size pot of fondue out of one of them". Everyone was in it, the teacehrs picked the older kids to have leads and the little kids to have two or three word lines, etc. We did A Christmas Carol once, we got a fog machine, and my best friend's older brother was Scrooge, one little boy was Tiny Tim, "Scrooge's" girlfriend was the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come....it was awesome!

I did a play at the community college, and it was really awesome. However, I was the youngest one in the cast, so I was a bit out of the loop, except for play-related jokes....like "crease". *falls over laughing* Same when I did a show at the local university, except since it's such a prestigious university, and I was just a maid (since there were no parts for a fourteen-year-old, but my awesome previous director pulled strings for me to get me the experience), everyone there treated me like I wasn't there. Even the director, who thought that since I was a teenager I shouldn't be allowed to touch anything, or else I would steal or break it.

I do community theatre now, though, since I found a play that I'm currently working on that ACTUALLY had a part for a teenage girl!

So if one of your characters does a show at a colelge, I guess that might help...?

Sorry, I know that probably didn't help....but if your school is really strict, or prestigious, maybe a character with a not-so-great reputation could get stuck with one of those problems...?

Hahahaha, my junior high stunk.

We had no Drama Club, and we only put on a play every other year, which stinks for half of the classes, becuase there were three grades. My town also has really good singers and actors, so competition... wasn't. We all went in knowing what part we were going to get. Only a few people didn't make it. The entire cast of the one production I was in (I was in the one-musical class :( ) was about thirty kids, with three adults running it, and five members for our crew. We had to get our parents to make the set, and out of that pink foam-board stuff, so our set generally stunk. The costumes were put together based on what we had in our closets, so there wasn't much for consistancy. We also didn't have a pit band. All we had was a pianist and a drum. One drum and one piano. The music was lame.

Our junior high stunk for the theatre, I'm glad the high school is better.

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