https://reasonstobecheerful.world/can-school-plays-change-kids-lives/
"Eleven-year-old Carlos is buckling under pressure. The sixth-grader at Lilla
G. Frederick Middle School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, is the lead in his
school play, acting as the young Siddharta Gautama, who is struggling with
leaving his palace before he becomes known as Buddha Shakyamuni. But the young
actor is fighting stage fright.
“Carlos, who do you want to be?” the Spirit Series leader challenges him.
“Give him a break!” another student shouts.
“No, I will not give him a break,” the trainer responds. “Carlos is a great
prince, and like Prince Siddharta now, he must make a great choice.”
The last run-through this morning was bumpy, and the class hadn’t even gotten
through the script in full, but now the entire class is supporting their
classmate, shouting “Carlos, Carlos,” urging him to go back on stage.
Crucially, the casting for this play was by lottery. Carlos did not ask for the
main role, but now he has to step up.
Screenwriter Richard Strauss designed it that way. When Strauss’s first wife
passed away in 2000, it was a shock for him and their then-10-year-old
daughter, Molly. “I saw that my daughter was facing the kind of challenge and
adversity she really wasn’t prepared for,” he says.
Strauss, who has written for Fox, MGM, Paramount, Columbia and Showtime,
naturally turned to what he knows best: storytelling. “I had the idea that
perhaps stories of great heroes and the way they met challenges and hardships
in their lives could be inspirational to her,” he says. “But I had never
written for children before. So it took me about a year before I realized that
I didn’t have to write for children. I believe the program is so successful
because the plays are very, very challenging for fourth- through 10th-grade
students.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
