Putting Arts Education To The Test
What sort of person does a public school arts education produce? And what sort of art?
Actors Morgan Fay & Katie McLoughlin with Directors Noah Marger & Scott Castner
A pack of lazy, delusional narcissists at Beaverton's Arts and Communication Magnet Academy (ACMA) has been given the keys to their state of the art performing arts facility, and after 2 to 4 years of training with Artistic Director Joel Morello, they have been let loose, and are all by themselves producing their original adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. In most cases "student produced" would be an invitation to stay home, but that would be a mistake. This is so much more than a high school play.
On exhibit in Coraline (which ran Nov. 14-22, 2014) is the work of about 50 kids from the tail end of Generation Y--everyone working on the show was born between 1996 and 2001. In 2013 Time Magazine described Millennials like this: "They’re narcissistic. They’re lazy. They’re coddled. They’re even a bit delusional. Those aren’t just unfounded negative stereotypes about 80 million Americans born roughly between 1980 and 2000. They’re backed up by a decade of sociological research."
Really? The creative team behind ACMA's Coraline (average age: 16.5 years) has been working on this project for 18 months, and logged almost 200 hours in rehearsals alone. They've spent easily another 300 hours collectively doing the creative, administrative, and pavement-pounding work that putting on a main stage show requires. And they're doing this while preparing college applications, taking AP courses in history, physics, and calculus, and holding down jobs at Burgerville.
Are these hand-selected child prodigies? Not really. ACMA admissions have been predominantly lottery based in recent years--no audition is required for admission for over half of the students who get in. While the student composer began writing music at age 6, most of these kids didn't find their artistic voices or feet until coming to ACMA sometime between 6th and 9th grade. A few of the actors now get training outside of school, but the majority do not. This is not a privileged segment of of our community, this is public school. Your tax dollars at work. An arts education at work. The next generation at work.
Knowing these kids as I do—as a parent volunteer for the last two years—I can say with certainty that they are not only more interesting than I was at their age, but more capable, more confident, more passionate, and more engaged than anyone I remember at my high school, and more than most people I’ve known since. I don't believe it's because they're special. I believe it's because they've been given the time, space, and tools to find their voices and develop their craft with a level of trust and respect that is sadly lacking in most schools today.
I’m excited for the art these kids will produce as adults—I look forward to seeing them on stage; pre-ordering hardcopies of their books; begging for invitations to their film premieres—but I’m also excited for the kinds of people they’re becoming and the kinds of lives they’ll lead. Not all of these kids will pursue a career in the arts, but because of this experience—the opportunity to create something large and beautiful and collaborative and also entirely their own—they are growing muscles that vastly increase the chances that they'll continue to do creative work, and continue to enrich our world.
You should totally go see their show.
-- Kelly Green
ACMA Parent
Coraline opens Friday, November 14 at ACMA's Visual & Performing Arts Center, and closes on November 22. Featuring an original score by sophomore Kelly Schenk, choreography by 2014 graduate Claire Aldridge, a script by Scott Castner, Technical Direction and set design by Josiah Boucher, the play is directed by Scott Castner and Noah Marger.
On exhibit in Coraline (which ran Nov. 14-22, 2014) is the work of about 50 kids from the tail end of Generation Y--everyone working on the show was born between 1996 and 2001. In 2013 Time Magazine described Millennials like this: "They’re narcissistic. They’re lazy. They’re coddled. They’re even a bit delusional. Those aren’t just unfounded negative stereotypes about 80 million Americans born roughly between 1980 and 2000. They’re backed up by a decade of sociological research."
Really? The creative team behind ACMA's Coraline (average age: 16.5 years) has been working on this project for 18 months, and logged almost 200 hours in rehearsals alone. They've spent easily another 300 hours collectively doing the creative, administrative, and pavement-pounding work that putting on a main stage show requires. And they're doing this while preparing college applications, taking AP courses in history, physics, and calculus, and holding down jobs at Burgerville.
Are these hand-selected child prodigies? Not really. ACMA admissions have been predominantly lottery based in recent years--no audition is required for admission for over half of the students who get in. While the student composer began writing music at age 6, most of these kids didn't find their artistic voices or feet until coming to ACMA sometime between 6th and 9th grade. A few of the actors now get training outside of school, but the majority do not. This is not a privileged segment of of our community, this is public school. Your tax dollars at work. An arts education at work. The next generation at work.
Knowing these kids as I do—as a parent volunteer for the last two years—I can say with certainty that they are not only more interesting than I was at their age, but more capable, more confident, more passionate, and more engaged than anyone I remember at my high school, and more than most people I’ve known since. I don't believe it's because they're special. I believe it's because they've been given the time, space, and tools to find their voices and develop their craft with a level of trust and respect that is sadly lacking in most schools today.
I’m excited for the art these kids will produce as adults—I look forward to seeing them on stage; pre-ordering hardcopies of their books; begging for invitations to their film premieres—but I’m also excited for the kinds of people they’re becoming and the kinds of lives they’ll lead. Not all of these kids will pursue a career in the arts, but because of this experience—the opportunity to create something large and beautiful and collaborative and also entirely their own—they are growing muscles that vastly increase the chances that they'll continue to do creative work, and continue to enrich our world.
You should totally go see their show.
-- Kelly Green
ACMA Parent
Coraline opens Friday, November 14 at ACMA's Visual & Performing Arts Center, and closes on November 22. Featuring an original score by sophomore Kelly Schenk, choreography by 2014 graduate Claire Aldridge, a script by Scott Castner, Technical Direction and set design by Josiah Boucher, the play is directed by Scott Castner and Noah Marger.
