Open Forum

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical. 

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated! 

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues? 

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the <g class="gr_ gr_89 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="89" data-gr-id="89">end</g> we were nominated for "Best Production" <g class="gr_ gr_90 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Style multiReplace" id="90" data-gr-id="90">in  our</g> state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen

I am super excited to start next school year, but at loss for what our next musical should be. Let me give you some background about our program and my original plans that got destroyed by licensing!

Last year was an amazing year for my theatre program. In an unprecedented move, I teamed up with a Charter school that shares our school space. This alone was amazing. Prior to this teaming, the two schools were at constant odds. But the teaming was destined. I needed a musical director, they had one and she was amazing, my soul teaching sister. We embarked on an amazing show, "In the Heights." It was a no brainer. Our schools are located in Denver, a neighborhood that is going through Serious gentrification. With that being said, the cast was 90% Latino and 85% Bilingual. The show was perfect and very magical.

In the end we were nominated for "Best Production" in  our state's High school theatre awards. It was an experience that may never be duplicated!

This year I have most of the students returning. I have 4 strong male singers, one who is truly gifted and three amazing girls. My first instinct was Rent. It would have been a perfect show for my talent! I put in for the rights, only to have it "in process" for three months until they finally told me it was restricted. It is coming on tour to Denver 3 months before we want to put our "school version" on. So that was a no go!

While I was waiting for the word on Rent, I had the idea to try to get the rights to West Side Story, but he Bilingual version. It wasn't offered on the MTI site so I first wrote directly to licensing@leonardbernstein.com. The referred me to...MTI of course. I wrote a long email explaining how it would be important for our community to have a bilingual version. This was a dead end. They said the rights for the Bilingual version were not available.

Now I am at a loss. I do not know what show to put on. I have a talented group of kiddos and I want to do something important to our community and to them as individuals. Spring awakening is one of my thoughts, I would do a big service learning piece with it, but it would be very risky as the school has recently been faced with suicide and students dealing with sexual assault. I am always questioning what are my limits as an educator? Are exposing our kids to too much? Are we not talking enough about real issues?

So there it is. Any suggestions for musicals or opinions on Spring Awakening would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Megen