Theater
Drama is a part of the curriculum in every grade in the Lower School, and students in the Middle and Upper Schools have opportunities to learn acting skills. Some alumnae/i who learned theater skills at OES have gone on to careers in theater or film, and some students participate in college productions and community theater. Whether or not they continue with theater production, students who participate in the drama program gain insight into the value and techniques of theater.
Lower School
In the Pre-Kindergarten class, the children do two plays during the year that the parents are invited to. They also do dramatizations in the classroom in which children follow a story line but provide their own words, using classics such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Rabbit or Cinderella.
Students in the Kindergarten and Primary classes present an annual musical, which includes instruction in drama and singing as well as work on costumes and sets. The musical is directed by Kindergarten teacher Deborah Bridgnell, who also is a choir director and a former opera singer. She weaves theater terminology and concepts into her directing so the experience is educational as well as fun.
In first grade, students usually do a reader’s theater production in the fall, in which children focus on their voices without the distractions of acting, set, and costumes. In the spring, the first-graders present a play or puppet production.
Second-graders do a lot of reader’s theater in the library during their folktale units, and the Hero Reports provide an opportunity for public speaking as the students dress up like their heroes and deliver short biographical speeches.
Third-graders do casual reader's theater in the library or skits connected with their classroom work. They also create a full-scale production about the history of Portland.
In the Fourth Grade, the dramatic highlight is the Potlatch, for which students study the legends of Northwest Indian tribes and then create and dramatize their own legends. The children make their own costumes, sets, and songs for the performances, which they present to their buddy classes and to their parents.
The fifth grade does either a condensed play written by Shakespeare or a musical based on a classic. Students receive formal acting instruction from their teachers and from theater professionals from the NW Children’s Theatre. To prepare for the hour-long production, students spend time on character study, rehearsals, building the sets, and studying the history of the time in which the drama is set.
Middle School
Formal acting instruction begins in the Sixth Grade. Each Middle School year is divided into four quarters, and the arts curriculum includes one quarter each of acting, studio arts, and music. For the fourth quarter, students go deeper into one of those three areas.
In the Sixth Grade, acting classes focus on storytelling skills, character, plot, voice, and improvisation. The quarter culminates with students performing stories for Lower School audiences.
In Seventh Grade students focus on stronger plot development and using improvisation to create characters and scenarios. Students begin to understand that acting is not just about talking but also communicating with the body, the eyes, and movement.
In the Eighth Grade, students learn more advanced vocal techniques and character development as they work from written scripts. Teacher David Gomes, who worked at Center Stage for seven seasons and was one of four founding members of Artist Repertory Theatre, teaches tricks he learned during roughly 20 years as an actor. He directs the eighth-graders to present a spring musical that is performed for students, parents, and grandparents.
Upper School
Theater instruction in the Upper School includes acting classes and a stagecraft activity period. The skills students learn are applied in three annual productions in the Great Hall.
The one-semester acting class is one of the electives students can choose to fulfill their two-year arts requirement, and students can take it more than once. The class lets students get a taste of acting without the pressure of having to perform in front of an audience other than fellow students. It also provides a workshop for students involved in school plays or mock trial to polish their performances.
Student performances include musicals, dramas, and one-act plays written and directed by students in the playwrighting class. The plays are usually presented in the Great Hall, which is the main gathering place for Upper School students, but the master plan for OES calls for construction of a theater as the next capital project.
The stagecraft activity gives students experience in designing and creating sets for school performances. They also can learn technical theater skills such as lighting, sound, and stage management through on-the-job training in school productions.
