Help Me Bring Fun, Contemporary Live Theater to High Schoolers!
My students need your help to get their first-ever taste of live theater with the American Conservatory Theater's production of Vietgone, a recent comedic drama by contemporary playwright Qui Nguyen.
My 11th and 12th graders are, hands down, among the hardest working students in Oakland. They come from many different backgrounds--culturally, ethnically, religiously, and so on. However, their commitment to hard work and academic achievement unites them. These students are the readers, writers, thinkers, mathematicians and burgeoning young scientists every teacher hopes for. Yet...
As academically oriented as my students are, our school lacks the sort of funding to take advantage of the Bay Area's robust enrichment programs designed to extend learning beyond classroom walls.
All students need engaging experiences beyond the confines of the classroom, opportunities that will allow them to connect what they learn in their classes to real-life experiences--and to do so in ways that are fun and exciting! The more opportunities these students have to engage in learning outside the confines of their classroom, the more they will deepen their appreciation and understanding of the world they inhabit. Such opportunities encourage personal growth and help pave the way for a successful transition into life beyond high school.
My Project
In AP Literature, students read, think, produce and write about the principle genres of imaginative literature--poetry, short fiction, the novel, and drama. Drama is unique amongst these genres, as plays are written to be performed and experienced live, in the characters and events unfold themselves to an audience in real-time. Because theater brings literature to life in the old-school 3-D-sort of way, it invites readers to watch, listen, think and feel in ways that other types of literature don't. Because of this, good drama can affect audience members in powerful ways.
Upon recently learning that few to none of my 60 graduating seniors has never seen live theater, I determined to send them off to college having already notched this important cultural experience on their belt.
And what better way to get students excited about the amazing, ancient art of drama than sit them down to a professional theater production of an energetic, contemporary comedy-drama like Vietgone? Aside from garnering rave reviews, Vietgone's themes of love, war, immigration, family, and personal history really stand to engage the minds and hearts of my students, the majority portion of whom come from recently immigrated families, from Vietnam and beyond.
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