There are many ways to 'get people interested' in your program. It depends on who you're seeking to join it. The number one thing is that you're digging it and are passionate about the choice of show you are seeking to put on.
One suggestion would be not to ask students what they want to do, for the reason of experiences that I had. When I inherited the program, I was informed that the students had their heart set on doing 'The Wizard of Oz'. So off we went, and the 5 really dedicated desperately wanting to do Oz students dropped out in the first week. The show was great, though I don't personally like the musical all that much.
Couple years later, and several students were begging to do 'The Crucible.' I remembered playing John Proctor and remembered it as one of my favorite productions, but had I read it again before committing to doing it for high school, I may have thought twice. And again, the two most vocal people who wanted to do it, dropped like flies within a week. I can put this down to them not getting the part of Proctor or Abigail, which were parts they were never going to get. Again, the show turned out wonderfully, and it helped that I love this work.
Find a play that has some cool fighting sequences, or high physical comedy. If you have good English teachers, find a play that is on the curriculum, and produce that. For comedy, I highly recommend Peter Schaffer's 'Black Comedy'. Not a huge cast (we double cast ours to create an overall cast of 16), but incredibly funny - three great male comic roles, and 3 great female roles, and a few cameo roles.
I also really like 'Drop Dead, Juliet!' by Allison Williams. It's a great parody/homage of 'Romeo and Juliet' that has potential for a large cast, with minimal boys (if that's your set-up) or not.
Have fun! Completely agree with the previous post about not choosing to do a play until you have the right cast. This is definitely true up to a point. For example, we decided quite late to do 'Evita' as we had several performers who were perfect for Eva, Peron and Che. We had also previously decided to do 'Shrek', as we had several (different) performers who were perfect for Farquaad, Fiona, Dragon, and Pinocchio, though none in mind for Shrek himself. We had two boys show for audition who we didn't think would be interested, and it worked out wonderfully. So, yes, decide to produce a show when you know you have the cast, but equally, go a little bit on faith that the right people will show up or rise up. :)
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Phillip Goodchild
Theatre Arts Instructor/Assistant Department Head of English
Ruskin FL
Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2016 15:16
From: James Kinney
Subject: Comedies for high school
Best advice I ever received from my mentor was, "Don't plan a play unless you know you have the cast to perform it."
This, for me, means having to convince students and ELA teachers that works by Shakespeare, Euripides, Sophocles, Sarte, Shaw, and others are approachable by our students. And then, further education that historic themes found in Anne Frank, Good, The Crucible, etc. relate to 21st century students in an urban high school.
We had considered doing A Thurber Carnival this year, but the comedy relies on an understanding societal norms not seen in this part of Western Washington.
At the end of the day, the types of shows students here get excited about and want to attempt are Disney musicals and farces with just enough innuendo so that our incredibly conservative administration wonders if we are going "too far". This, by the way, is an administrator (former English teacher) who stated that the innuendo in Shakespeare was "well couched."
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Jym Kinney
Troupe Director
Clover Park High School
Lakewood, Washington