Open Forum

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...). 

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled. 

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------

Hi, Nathan. 
I'm using this year as an opportunity to clean out and organize our theater, a task that always seems to get put off when we're in an active production year.  I've scheduled two Saturdays and invited students to sign up for slots.  On the first Saturday, we cleaned out our lighting storage area, sorted through equipment and discarded old, broken, equipment.  We pulled everything that has been stashed away in the area under our tech booth, sorted through it all, then put back the items we were keeping in an orderly fashion -- sorting so that like items are together.  For the next one, we are pulling all the accumulated prop items to sort, inventory, and put away.  The plan is that each bin will have like items together (Christmas decorations, telephones, etc.), an inventory sheet, and an identification number.  We'll input the bin inventory to a Google spreadsheet.  For future shows, the Props Mistress (all girls school) will be able to search the spreadsheet, find what she needs, and, during strike, return it to the proper place.  

My students who participate are earning Thespian points for their hours (and service hours for that requirement), learning about what we have in storage, picking up some of the lingo (during the lighting day they learned the names of fixtures, different cables, parts of the fixtures), and exploring some of the behind the scenes work that keeps a theater going.    Plus -- when we return to full productions next year, everything will be clean and organized.  

We have been in-person with a virtual option since August, so this is doable.  If you are fully virtual, you might check to see if you can bring a small cohort of students into your building.  

Wishing you well and hope for better times ahead,
Kate Bernardo
Beaumont School, Troupe 6703
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
kbernardo@beaumontschool.org

------------------------------
Kate Bernardo
Drama Director
Beaumont School
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2021 13:29
From: Nathan Jourdan
Subject: ITS Activities?

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...).

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled.

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------

We are doing ALL kinds of things and the kids have really been the ones to generate new ideas. Here are a few that are regulars for us and have stayed during the pandemic AND a few that are new to this time and working. I think the key is, lean on the kids to take on doing what sounds fun to them. For example let a different leadership student (your natural leaders in class, your ITS president and officers,...) each choose something fun they want to lead and let them sign up for a week to be in charge of making their thing happen. If only half of the ideas pan out it's still two or three activities a month and keeps them connected and your troupe growing because anyone can jump in at any point and join the fun!

• Thespian of the week: anyone can nominate another troupe member for going above and beyond in some way in service of the troupe (helping new people, cleaning up after others, taking on a new leadership role, being positive and encouraging in hard times,...) and the officers choose one person each week to recognize. They take a photo of that person and post it to troupe social media and at our ITS meeting that week (be it virtual or in person) all members get to shower the thespian of the week with all the reasons we love them. 
• Improv. workshops: have students drum up easily socially distanced and masked improv games and teach them to each other at a workshop. If this ends up being an hour of playing freeze because no one comes with new games that's totally fine and fun and if it's more than that, even better. This is an awesome thing to do if you have a lot of work on your plate after school because the students can totally make it happen on their own while you work in the corner. Or if you want to develop improv in your troupe more you can be way more involved and teach principles of improv and games yourself. I've got another theatre teacher friend whose had wild success with online improv workshops and there are tons of suggestions for modifications and new games online to make it work. If it's virtual the kids could literally do it without you. 
• Online meet ups: My student board of officers this year have created a discord and held movie nights, played online games (minecraft, among us,...), and more together as unofficial troupe meet ups. They coordinate these on their own and they have had a blast connecting this way, especially when we couldn't be together at all in person.
• Troupe Picnic: in non-pandemic times we had at least one a year, usually around thanksgiving, that was potluck, but this year smaller groups have met up with bring your own picnic meals and sat outside on their own blanket or towel socially distanced to enjoy a little sun and chatting together without masks. 
• Weekly games/activities: our troupe meets every Thursday and each week the officers have a game or activity for the troupe members to do. This year they have been really great with coming up with easily socially distanced and masked games and modifications to games. We also have natural teams because our experienced members (we call them bigs) have new members (we call them littles) already that they help throughout the year, so big/little families get to battle against/with other big/little families for silly prizes. This is kind of a "kids are kids" thing and you'd think high schoolers wouldn't want to play stupid games, but they absolutely love it. We've played variations of four corners and Simon says. We've had rock, paper, scissors battles and we've make up skits about upcoming activities or past shows. They also love to play ridiculous kahoot! games (works great virtually too) with sometimes very silly and bias answers depending on who made up the kahoot! (i.e. what is the best musical or what is the name of the ghost that lives in our auditorium). I do not involve myself in these games or the planning of them unless they get stuck and need my help. 
• Weekly Theme: let troupe members vote on a weekly theme and everyone dress in that theme or do other silly stuff in that theme on a certain day each week. We started doing this for our ITS meetings and it's been super fun. The board of officers chooses a few themes (so they stay appropriate) and then the rest of the troupe votes at our meeting each week. Voting can easily be done through an online poll or simple raised hands. You could even get your classes involved to help spark interest in ITS. We then play with the theme as a group for the meeting the following week, but you could do this even without a meeting going on weekly by incorporating it into your classroom. Again have the kids do the work and have the fun. Let them decorate your classroom door before school, or create a quick weird call and response or chant for the week to use,... We had a Disney theme at our last meeting and had some members in full princess costumes while others just enjoyed the "Up" themed game we played and the Disney music. I think we have dinosaur week coming up? I really don't keep track, because the kids plan and coordinate it and they send out the reminders to everyone so I just wait for my reminder a day or two in advanced and try to play along as much as I can that day. This works online too as they can create a slideshow in the theme and people are more likely to dress up silly at home than they are at school!
• Service projects: Recently we collected fruit cups and cans for baskets to go home with elementary school students with food insecurity over spring break in coordination with a local women's club. Coming up we are part of a beautification day that's all outside as part of a community wide clean up initiative. We do a lot of our own service projects usually; however, they involve working with younger students or other non-covid safe activities but that hasn't stopped us. Even if your students don't have service project ideas of their own, pay attention to ones already happening at your school or in the community and see if the kids want to tag along on another organization's project like we did for these two events. It's nice when you don't have to coordinate a bunch of stuff because another organization is taking the lead, but the kids still get to give back and stay active together as a troupe in their community.

I think one of the most helpful things is to remember that you DO have paperwork and organizing and logistics to think about on top of teaching and directing. Let the kiddos take charge of things they can, and social/teambuilding stuff is totally within their ability to lead so you can sit back and enjoy watching them, or hide in the corner doing paperwork. Plus the kids LOVE to be in charge. Make it easy to be a leader and you'll be surprised how many kids want to and can lead. Slowly they'll start doing more and more on their own and come up with their own ideas to run with.

------------------------------
Kathleen McNulty Mann
mcnulkl@bay.k12.fl.us

Program Director & Theatre Teacher
J.R. Arnold High School
Thespian Troupe 6371
Panama City Beach, FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2021 13:29
From: Nathan Jourdan
Subject: ITS Activities?

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...).

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled.

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 3/16/2021 12:52:00 PM
From: Kathleen McNulty Mann
Subject: RE: ITS Activities?

We are doing ALL kinds of things and the kids have really been the ones to generate new ideas. Here are a few that are regulars for us and have stayed during the pandemic AND a few that are new to this time and working. I think the key is, lean on the kids to take on doing what sounds fun to them. For example let a different leadership student (your natural leaders in class, your ITS president and officers,...) each choose something fun they want to lead and let them sign up for a week to be in charge of making their thing happen. If only half of the ideas pan out it's still two or three activities a month and keeps them connected and your troupe growing because anyone can jump in at any point and join the fun!

• Thespian of the week: anyone can nominate another troupe member for going above and beyond in some way in service of the troupe (helping new people, cleaning up after others, taking on a new leadership role, being positive and encouraging in hard times,...) and the officers choose one person each week to recognize. They take a photo of that person and post it to troupe social media and at our ITS meeting that week (be it virtual or in person) all members get to shower the thespian of the week with all the reasons we love them. 
• Improv. workshops: have students drum up easily socially distanced and masked improv games and teach them to each other at a workshop. If this ends up being an hour of playing freeze because no one comes with new games that's totally fine and fun and if it's more than that, even better. This is an awesome thing to do if you have a lot of work on your plate after school because the students can totally make it happen on their own while you work in the corner. Or if you want to develop improv in your troupe more you can be way more involved and teach principles of improv and games yourself. I've got another theatre teacher friend whose had wild success with online improv workshops and there are tons of suggestions for modifications and new games online to make it work. If it's virtual the kids could literally do it without you. 
• Online meet ups: My student board of officers this year have created a discord and held movie nights, played online games (minecraft, among us,...), and more together as unofficial troupe meet ups. They coordinate these on their own and they have had a blast connecting this way, especially when we couldn't be together at all in person.
• Troupe Picnic: in non-pandemic times we had at least one a year, usually around thanksgiving, that was potluck, but this year smaller groups have met up with bring your own picnic meals and sat outside on their own blanket or towel socially distanced to enjoy a little sun and chatting together without masks. 
• Weekly games/activities: our troupe meets every Thursday and each week the officers have a game or activity for the troupe members to do. This year they have been really great with coming up with easily socially distanced and masked games and modifications to games. We also have natural teams because our experienced members (we call them bigs) have new members (we call them littles) already that they help throughout the year, so big/little families get to battle against/with other big/little families for silly prizes. This is kind of a "kids are kids" thing and you'd think high schoolers wouldn't want to play stupid games, but they absolutely love it. We've played variations of four corners and Simon says. We've had rock, paper, scissors battles and we've make up skits about upcoming activities or past shows. They also love to play ridiculous kahoot! games (works great virtually too) with sometimes very silly and bias answers depending on who made up the kahoot! (i.e. what is the best musical or what is the name of the ghost that lives in our auditorium). I do not involve myself in these games or the planning of them unless they get stuck and need my help. 
• Weekly Theme: let troupe members vote on a weekly theme and everyone dress in that theme or do other silly stuff in that theme on a certain day each week. We started doing this for our ITS meetings and it's been super fun. The board of officers chooses a few themes (so they stay appropriate) and then the rest of the troupe votes at our meeting each week. Voting can easily be done through an online poll or simple raised hands. You could even get your classes involved to help spark interest in ITS. We then play with the theme as a group for the meeting the following week, but you could do this even without a meeting going on weekly by incorporating it into your classroom. Again have the kids do the work and have the fun. Let them decorate your classroom door before school, or create a quick weird call and response or chant for the week to use,... We had a Disney theme at our last meeting and had some members in full princess costumes while others just enjoyed the "Up" themed game we played and the Disney music. I think we have dinosaur week coming up? I really don't keep track, because the kids plan and coordinate it and they send out the reminders to everyone so I just wait for my reminder a day or two in advanced and try to play along as much as I can that day. This works online too as they can create a slideshow in the theme and people are more likely to dress up silly at home than they are at school!
• Service projects: Recently we collected fruit cups and cans for baskets to go home with elementary school students with food insecurity over spring break in coordination with a local women's club. Coming up we are part of a beautification day that's all outside as part of a community wide clean up initiative. We do a lot of our own service projects usually; however, they involve working with younger students or other non-covid safe activities but that hasn't stopped us. Even if your students don't have service project ideas of their own, pay attention to ones already happening at your school or in the community and see if the kids want to tag along on another organization's project like we did for these two events. It's nice when you don't have to coordinate a bunch of stuff because another organization is taking the lead, but the kids still get to give back and stay active together as a troupe in their community.

I think one of the most helpful things is to remember that you DO have paperwork and organizing and logistics to think about on top of teaching and directing. Let the kiddos take charge of things they can, and social/teambuilding stuff is totally within their ability to lead so you can sit back and enjoy watching them, or hide in the corner doing paperwork. Plus the kids LOVE to be in charge. Make it easy to be a leader and you'll be surprised how many kids want to and can lead. Slowly they'll start doing more and more on their own and come up with their own ideas to run with.

------------------------------
Kathleen McNulty Mann
mcnulkl@bay.k12.fl.us

Program Director & Theatre Teacher
J.R. Arnold High School
Thespian Troupe 6371
Panama City Beach, FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2021 13:29
From: Nathan Jourdan
Subject: ITS Activities?

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...).

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled.

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------

I totally totally get that Kate! I normally have an enormous troupe and indeed reap the benefits of many students being involved and sharing the load. It has been much fewer this year and much more difficult to get things done for sure with shows, meetings, anything. We have had far fewer participate in festivals and even fewer of those fully participating since they are virtual and they can do as much or as little as they want. I think what has helped me is sitting down and asking the kids what they want and having an honest discussion with them about how we get to those goals. If they don't want shows or festival or meetings or whatever, then that's okay. For whatever they do want, feeling like they aren't in it alone and you feeling like you aren't in it alone will help. If no one makes a flyer, there is no flyer, and that's okay. (p.s. if you aren't using canva.com start right now because it's free and a kid can make a flyer in seconds that looks amazing on there, plus sign up with your school email as an educator and get pro version free plus the ability to make a classroom to share on there).

Usually my student board of officers would meet, delegate, and meet back to update and finalize something, but we realized no one was motivated to do that this year so we changed a little to just doing things at our actual meeting. Like someone make a flyer right now at the meeting and we'll send it out to everyone right now, someone come up with the game we'll play next week,... and when the meeting is over if nothing else get's done until we meet again, that's okay.

We have to all be okay I think with whatever it is this year and maybe even start some limited goal setting for next year so kids have something to look forward to. We have been asking our current seniors what it is they want and trying to focus on their desires for now to finish out the year. They didn't want the stress of a spring show, we aren't doing one, but we are doing a showcase of select pieces they already have or are working on through classes, and doing improv workshops because anyone can show up at any point and those are things our seniors asked for. 

We too have done a lot of organizing scripts and prop closets and the like because we have so little else we can do. At least that feels good when it's done and there is an accomplishment to look at. Take a photo and celebrate each bit of that. 

It's disheartening and sad for sure. It's going to take time for sure. I think we all feel a lot like that. I'm sending my love your way for sure!

------------------------------
Kathleen McNulty Mann
mcnulkl@bay.k12.fl.us

Program Director & Theatre Teacher
J.R. Arnold High School
Thespian Troupe 6371
Panama City Beach, FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 13:13
From: Kate Bernardo
Subject: ITS Activities?

Thanks for the ideas, Kathleen. 

 

I don't know about you all, but I'm finding it really difficult to keep my students motivated to do anything.  Follow through on even simple tasks ("make a flyer for the board") are not being completed.  WE are a small school with a small program, and have managed to do a couple of productions this year (involving lots of additional preparation on my end).  The kids, however, are struggling.  I know life will be better post-Covid, but it is disheartening to have no motivation and little momentum.  I have little interest in attending State Conference... SAD.

 

Kate Bernardo

Beaumont English Department

Beaumont Drama Director

kbernardo@beaumontschool.org

 

 

Original Message:
Sent: 3/16/2021 12:52:00 PM
From: Kathleen McNulty Mann
Subject: RE: ITS Activities?

We are doing ALL kinds of things and the kids have really been the ones to generate new ideas. Here are a few that are regulars for us and have stayed during the pandemic AND a few that are new to this time and working. I think the key is, lean on the kids to take on doing what sounds fun to them. For example let a different leadership student (your natural leaders in class, your ITS president and officers,...) each choose something fun they want to lead and let them sign up for a week to be in charge of making their thing happen. If only half of the ideas pan out it's still two or three activities a month and keeps them connected and your troupe growing because anyone can jump in at any point and join the fun!

• Thespian of the week: anyone can nominate another troupe member for going above and beyond in some way in service of the troupe (helping new people, cleaning up after others, taking on a new leadership role, being positive and encouraging in hard times,...) and the officers choose one person each week to recognize. They take a photo of that person and post it to troupe social media and at our ITS meeting that week (be it virtual or in person) all members get to shower the thespian of the week with all the reasons we love them. 
• Improv. workshops: have students drum up easily socially distanced and masked improv games and teach them to each other at a workshop. If this ends up being an hour of playing freeze because no one comes with new games that's totally fine and fun and if it's more than that, even better. This is an awesome thing to do if you have a lot of work on your plate after school because the students can totally make it happen on their own while you work in the corner. Or if you want to develop improv in your troupe more you can be way more involved and teach principles of improv and games yourself. I've got another theatre teacher friend whose had wild success with online improv workshops and there are tons of suggestions for modifications and new games online to make it work. If it's virtual the kids could literally do it without you. 
• Online meet ups: My student board of officers this year have created a discord and held movie nights, played online games (minecraft, among us,...), and more together as unofficial troupe meet ups. They coordinate these on their own and they have had a blast connecting this way, especially when we couldn't be together at all in person.
• Troupe Picnic: in non-pandemic times we had at least one a year, usually around thanksgiving, that was potluck, but this year smaller groups have met up with bring your own picnic meals and sat outside on their own blanket or towel socially distanced to enjoy a little sun and chatting together without masks. 
• Weekly games/activities: our troupe meets every Thursday and each week the officers have a game or activity for the troupe members to do. This year they have been really great with coming up with easily socially distanced and masked games and modifications to games. We also have natural teams because our experienced members (we call them bigs) have new members (we call them littles) already that they help throughout the year, so big/little families get to battle against/with other big/little families for silly prizes. This is kind of a "kids are kids" thing and you'd think high schoolers wouldn't want to play stupid games, but they absolutely love it. We've played variations of four corners and Simon says. We've had rock, paper, scissors battles and we've make up skits about upcoming activities or past shows. They also love to play ridiculous kahoot! games (works great virtually too) with sometimes very silly and bias answers depending on who made up the kahoot! (i.e. what is the best musical or what is the name of the ghost that lives in our auditorium). I do not involve myself in these games or the planning of them unless they get stuck and need my help. 
• Weekly Theme: let troupe members vote on a weekly theme and everyone dress in that theme or do other silly stuff in that theme on a certain day each week. We started doing this for our ITS meetings and it's been super fun. The board of officers chooses a few themes (so they stay appropriate) and then the rest of the troupe votes at our meeting each week. Voting can easily be done through an online poll or simple raised hands. You could even get your classes involved to help spark interest in ITS. We then play with the theme as a group for the meeting the following week, but you could do this even without a meeting going on weekly by incorporating it into your classroom. Again have the kids do the work and have the fun. Let them decorate your classroom door before school, or create a quick weird call and response or chant for the week to use,... We had a Disney theme at our last meeting and had some members in full princess costumes while others just enjoyed the "Up" themed game we played and the Disney music. I think we have dinosaur week coming up? I really don't keep track, because the kids plan and coordinate it and they send out the reminders to everyone so I just wait for my reminder a day or two in advanced and try to play along as much as I can that day. This works online too as they can create a slideshow in the theme and people are more likely to dress up silly at home than they are at school!
• Service projects: Recently we collected fruit cups and cans for baskets to go home with elementary school students with food insecurity over spring break in coordination with a local women's club. Coming up we are part of a beautification day that's all outside as part of a community wide clean up initiative. We do a lot of our own service projects usually; however, they involve working with younger students or other non-covid safe activities but that hasn't stopped us. Even if your students don't have service project ideas of their own, pay attention to ones already happening at your school or in the community and see if the kids want to tag along on another organization's project like we did for these two events. It's nice when you don't have to coordinate a bunch of stuff because another organization is taking the lead, but the kids still get to give back and stay active together as a troupe in their community.

I think one of the most helpful things is to remember that you DO have paperwork and organizing and logistics to think about on top of teaching and directing. Let the kiddos take charge of things they can, and social/teambuilding stuff is totally within their ability to lead so you can sit back and enjoy watching them, or hide in the corner doing paperwork. Plus the kids LOVE to be in charge. Make it easy to be a leader and you'll be surprised how many kids want to and can lead. Slowly they'll start doing more and more on their own and come up with their own ideas to run with.

------------------------------
Kathleen McNulty Mann
mcnulkl@bay.k12.fl.us

Program Director & Theatre Teacher
J.R. Arnold High School
Thespian Troupe 6371
Panama City Beach, FL

Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2021 13:29
From: Nathan Jourdan
Subject: ITS Activities?

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...).

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled.

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------

Nathan,

Hopefully you are getting some fantastic ideas from your colleagues here in this thread. We also have some suggested activities that were curated by/from other teachers and students that I wanted to make sure you saw: https://www.schooltheatre.org/membership/covid-induction-points

Wishing you all the best during these challenging times! The honor and recognition that you re able to give to the students means more now than ever before.

Best,

Hans

------------------------------
Hans Weichhart
Chief Membership Officer
Educational Theatre Association
Cincinnati OH
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2021 13:29
From: Nathan Jourdan
Subject: ITS Activities?

I could really use some help figuring out what I could do with my ITS members during the pandemic? Some are involved in our digital production right now, but a few of them were not able to for various reasons (for example: no sound tech needed for our digital show, so they are not doing anything...).

I inherited this troupe last year while going through a really tough transitional process with the former directors. No fault on them really, but just a bad situation that I won't get into. I have been taking on quite a lot on my own and quickly become overwhelmed. I started directing shows, taking masters classes, new curriculum, and had the ITS troupe. It has been difficult to manage and unfortunately I haven't been able to direct as much attention to these students. Before I was able to really get things going with them last year we were sent home for the pandemic and everything kind of stopped or stalled.

Other than ITS festival, which we won't be able to do, I was wondering what other troupe leaders are doing with their kids to keep them active during the pandemic? I would appreciate any help or advice! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nathan Jourdan
Drama Teacher
Bel Air High School
------------------------------