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[an error occurred while processing this directive] (none) Resident teachers By Linda Bane Special to the Tidings "Hi guys," OSF School Visit Pro-gram Resident Actor/Teacher David Eric Thompson says as the small group of 7-10th graders traipse in. Some of the students who attended a workshop last year are eager to demonstrate what they learned. Kirsten Giroux, another resident actor/ teacher in the program, begins forming everyone into a seated circle on the floor. The students are in Ashland to watch "The Man Who Came to Dinner," a play they have already read and discussed in class. To further enhance the playgoer's experiences, they are also participating in a workshop to get a feel for how actors do their job. After a quick warm-up stretching exercise, the group expands and focuses energy by walking around the room and counting how many people are wearing white, how many have jewelry, how many are wearing black. They are told to walk slowly. Then more slowly. Then so slowly that if someone entered the room, they wouldn't notice any movement. There's some giggling. Eventually everyone settles into slow motion - undulating along at somewhere near the average speed of a glacier. Success. The acting exercises planned for the day are tailored to individual groups. They come from all over the western United States-even Alaska. Although high school drama clubs most commonly attend the workshops, workshops have been held for fifth graders through the occasional college crowd. For this group, one of the first exercises of the day is the challenge to form the letter "m" without talking to each other. It's harder than it sounds. Kids stand around, puzzled. It takes awhile. Finally, they have formed something that could, possibly, resemble an "m," but mostly just looks like a blob of adolescents. Bewildered looks increase. "Stay focused, stay focused," Giroux coaches. One student, frustrated, remarks how hard the exercise is. "We're doing it because it's hard," Thompson says. "Work through your frustration and figure it out." "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't," says Giroux. "You've just gotta try it." Eventually they create an "m" that could fit into the rest of the alphabet, and they're off on another exercise-one of imagination. The hard floor of the New Place, where the workshops are held, becomes first mud, then ice, then green Jell-O with miniature marshmallows. Imaginations are taking off. A couple of students, instead of walking on the "Jell-O," scoop it into their mouths. Others kick it across the room. On the "ice," some students have mentally fitted themselves with skates and are gliding around; others are slipping and tumbling down. Although the goal is still silent concentration, there's a lot of laughter. Inhibitions are slowly going away -but sometimes, they pop up. "I feel like an idiot," one student says during the Jell-O walk. "Sometimes you do," Giroux says. Thompson conducts an average of four workshops per week. He says that, generally, students in the middle school age category tend to be the most difficult to convince that it's really okay to act goofy and make believe. "Peer pressure to be `cool' is so strong," Thompson said. "But this is a safe place." "People get a little nervous about looking silly in front of everyone," Giroux tells the students. "But the thing is, everyone looks silly." She adds that the actors in a play are often doing extremely goofy things in front of entire audiences - and the audience likes it all the more. "When something's goofy and fun, people like it," she says. "Just break through," advises Thompson. For those who don't have a problem with shyness, Giroux says the workshops are a place they can "do things and not be told not to." Young people who are frequently told what to do often find theatre a place to "fit in and be comfortable with this world." If silently forming the letter "m" wasn't tough enough, the students are next challenged to create an airplane using only their bodies. It works. The airplane has wings, a front end and a back end. They then make themselves into a laptop computer -complete with mouse, keyboard, screen and a frustrated PC-user. Thompson ties the exercise into how actors use their physical bodies to create characters and entire plays. "All the actors are using this," he says, pointing to his body. "This is their instrument." He adds that actors need enough teamwork to feel safe with each other. "They have to be a team - what we call an ensemble," he said. Although most of the work is done improving the "ensemble" feel, everyone gets five seconds in the spotlight during the "Chair" game. Their only prop? A lowly chair. But, as the students demonstrate, chairs have an infinite number of possibilities. Soon the exercises shift focus from the physical body to words: the second tool in the actors box. In "Story," students sit in a circle and each person adds one word to a story. "Arti-chokes from Afghanistan inspired Kyle to a disgusting environment," is one creation. "Someone anonymously sent me messages" was another. This group, Giroux later said, had a particularly impressive grasp of vocabulary and ability to form coherent sentences-even one word at a time. Finally, students dabbled in onomatopoeia, putting the feelings and sounds of "electricity," "scramble" and "slurp" into the voice and body. By the end of the workshop, the students are hungry and talking about where they want to eat. They are collected by their teachers, some of whom have been participating in the acting exercises. Thompson said that many teachers enjoy the complete package OSF offers. "We have all the support here," he said. "They can get study guides here." "There is so much support here for teachers, it makes it very attractive for them." The workshop program has been around for about three years and is an extension of OSF's education department. Both Giroux and Thompson, who have acted at the Festival, now work with the educational program fulltime. Giroux says the workshops not only help students learn basic acting skills, but also capacities they can use in many aspects of their lives. "A lot of what they do in this group, and a lot of the skills they learn are things they can apply to anything," Giroux said. Using teamwork, not just on the stage but on a basketball court, a business team or... "They learn to take care of each other and work in a group." Thompson said that besides allowing students a taste of the acting profession, the workshops also helps young people get ready to understand the plays they will see - both on their current visit to OSF and in the future. He said that the mission reflects OSF founder Angus Bowmer's strong emphasis on education and "creating tomorrow's audience." Bowmer established the school visit program 30 years ago in an effort to give audiences, especially young audiences, the "tools to understand what the art form is all about," Thompson said. Knowing what goes into the life and training of the actor is part of that. "Otherwise, we may have a generation that doesn't go to the theatre because they don't know what it's all about," said Thompson. [an error occurred while processing this directive] (none) [an error occurred while processing this directive] (none) [an error occurred while processing this directive] (none) Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2000 Lee Northwest Publishing