Fine Arts: Drama

GODSPELL Parent Meeting

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 * 6:29 PM * LCHS Drama Room * You Can Also Volunteer On-Line

by Tom McLaughlin

September 17, 2007

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2008
LC DRAMA ROOM
(Right across from the LC Big Gym...we'll have signs for you)
6:29-7:28 PM
(We hope to be finish early...and we usually do)

THE QUICK FACTS ABOUT OUR MEETING

You are invited to our very important Parent Meeting as there are important conversations that we need to have with you about your student's involvement and success in this production and the Lewis Central Drama Program.

We hope that your student has shared the details (and a flier) about Parent Meeting for our Spring musical of GODSPELL by Stephen Schwartz and John Michael Trebelak. The meeting will be in the LCHS Drama Room (right across from the LCHS Big Gym) on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 6:29 PM.

We will spend time reviewing our production procedures, regulations & rules at the meeting. One of the procedures that is very important to us as educators is that our students be responsible partners in communicating with family members, teachers, friends and with members of the community. If you have not heard about the meeting, we would appreciate you encouraging your student as we will continue to do. Our students are important ambassadors for the program with all shareholders in this process.

PRODUCTION CALENDAR OUR MEETING & AGENDA

We'll do our best to share important information with you about our calendar, our process and we'll be asking for your help in planning and helping us support our students with locker signs, a Pizza Feed, Tech Day lunches & the Cast Party to celebrate the hard work of our talented students. If you're a parent that's seen a show or two during your student's career, your perspective and information is very important for other parents. If your student is new to the program, we really need to visit with you about how we function to help your student be successful within our exciting, competitive and very busy activities program at Lewis Central.

LC BOOSTER CLUB

If you're new to LCHS, this is the best $20.00 you'll ever spend to give to public education. The LC Booster Club members and volunteers are absolutely extraordinary in "boosting" our students towards the success that they celebrate.

When I arrived here more than a decade ago, we didn't have much to help our students succeed with building what have become spectacular sets. Now we're the envy of most programs throughout the state. With the monies gifted to us from the LC Booster Club, we've been able to purchase some fantastic tools to help us save time in our building process.

We've also been able to finance some really wonderful time-saving tools to build great productions when it comes to sets, costumes, makeup, special effects and producing modern/appealing productions. We've done ten Pulitzer Prize winning plays in the last decade. Five times during the last ten years, we've seen our spring musical open as a revival on Broadway.

The LC Booster Club that helps our students succeed by providing us with the funds to purchase modern tools and equipment to build the sets we've become well-known for producing. The hours of labor that have been saved and the quality that these tools allow us to produce is awesome. We hope that you become one of our LC Booster Club members. Join the Booster Club and help us give our students the "boost" that they need to succeed.

MISS THE MEETING? VOLUNTEER ON-LINE

We've all become so busy everyday. I certainly understand that as the only daily director for a group of over 100 students and the teacher of another large group of students. I need the help of parents for us to maintain our "Winning Tradition of Excellence." I've never been disappointed by the commitment and dedication of our parents at LC.

We certainly want to include any and all parents who are interested in supporting their student(s) and the students of our other parents. So, we've created this on-line tool for you to volunteer. We hope you can find some time to help us contribute to the success of our students.

When you click on a link below that interests you, an e-mail link will pop up for you to send to us. This e-mail address will have the suffix *.tomforisea.com.

If you get an e-mail addressed with this suffix, you're on the right track. I'm temporarily using my ISEA Campaign Web-site to help manage e-mails for our production. Once you've volunteered, we'll send you an automatic response through the campaign web-site for each of the committees. The site also allows us to forward e-mails to all the appropriate shareholders. Although it's taken lots of time to set up, we think it will improve our ability to effectively and quickly communicate.

In case you don't know, I'm running for ISEA Vice-President... Not to worry, though, I won't bother you with campaign e-mails. I'm just using the campaign web-site to create specific e-mail accounts, auto-responses and forwarding features.

PLEASE USE THESE LINKS TO COMMUNICATE WITH US...they are the correct e-mail address.

CAST PARTY COMMITTEE

NEEDED: One brave host family and almost everyone else to do a little. The Cast Parties for LC productions are handled entirely by the LC Drama parents.

One brave family hosts the event. Other parents chaperone, bake treats, prepare side-dishes, bring soft-drinks, help usher students home and assist the host family in cleaning up.

It's truly one of the best parties in town all year. Once we find a host to organize this event, we'll share your information with them and their information with you. We decide on a curfew at the cast party.

We need every parent's help to make this a success. As students remember performance nights and cast parties for the rest of their lives, we like to make sure they have great memories. Please help us celebrate their success and high school experience.

CLICK HERE if you're interested in helping with the cast party.

LOCKER SIGN COMMITTEE

NEEDED: One or two set of parents who are willing to help us recognize our students in a very public way within our school.

We'll provide you with all the student's names, their locker numbers and some of the artwork you'll need to do this job well. It's really an easy way to help and doesn't take much time.

We would like one sign posted by October 8, 2007. The other sign needs to be posted for our production week by October 29, 2007. We'll have the final posters done in color at AEA 13. You'll just need to assemble them and post them.

This is also a great publicity tool for our school. If you're short on time, like to do "artsy" or design sorts of things or enjoy surprising other people, this is a great committee for you choose.

CLICK HERE if you're interested in helping post locker signs.

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

NEEDED: One or two (at the most) parents to come in during our final dress rehearsal on Thursday November 1, 2007 at 7:15 PM to take photographs for us to burn to CDs. And, of course, a few parents/students to actually burn the photographs for other parents, students, etc.

We have the production professionally recorded to DVDs or Video-tapes. Forms for this are available at the ticket table on the night of the production. Forms and tapes can be left with the ticket-taker on the night of the production.

We do not allow photographs or video-taping during the production as it is a distraction to other patrons and our students. We want our energy to be on the students and the show.

We need an individual or two (at the most) who can blend into the background and take great photographs for us to share with all of the other parents, students and our community via the LC Web site.

As you know, our final dress rehearsal if VERY IMPORTANT to us and we need it to be as "distraction free" as possible. As we do not allow patrons to take photos or videos during productions, these photos are very important. We will take a short period of time on Friday November 2, 2007 to take photographs of the cast, etc. Please feel free to take photos of our reception line or of photos that you pose on either night of the production. We do meet every night after our "game" to regroup for the next day's success. This is a very busy time for teachers and students.

We are really interested in having a parent with strong digital photography skills, a nice camera to use and strong skills for looking at and formatting photographs.

CLICK HERE if you're interested in being our production photographer.

PIZZA FEED COMMITTEE

NEEDED: One or two parents to chair this committee. We have helped our students celebrate their hard-work with a pizza feed on the Wednesday before we open or on the night of our final dress rehearsal.

As we rehearse on Wednesday afternoon before we open, this is usually an ideal time to help our students celebrate and to feed them before they go home to do homework, catch up on chores or go to youth group at church.

We've had some very good experiences with certain vendors in our community. Unfortunately, others have not honored agreements that we've made in advance of our Pizza Feed.

We will share some of our experiences with this committee and our recommendations. After that, this is really about ordering the pizza, organizing parent chaperones, pick up the pizza, set up the pizza feed and help arrange some treats/soft drinks to go along with the pizza.

We'll help clean up after this event. The students will certainly be hungry on our Pizza Feed Night which is also Halloween night this year. So, it's a great way to provide our students a "treat." I'm sure that won't prevent them from playing "tricks" on us, though.

We believe that the "night before" the night before we open is a really important night for our students to get some rest. Other parents help here by chaperoning or by sending soft-drinks or treats. The chairs of this committee do a great job of "negotiating" a great deal for our pizza. Every student chips in the money for his/her share.

CLICK HERE if you're interested in chairing or being part of the 'Pizza Feed' Committee.

TECH DAY COMMITTEE

NEEDED: Lots of parents to help us in a very busy time for students that we share in the Performing Arts Department. NO EXPERIENCE IS NEEDED. As I am the only coach for this team of 70 students, some adult assistance is always appreciated.

We do our set construction in a variety of places near the auditorium. As I am the only sponsor for these 70 students, volunteers are very important to us. We like to make sure that students observe safety rules and avoid horse-play that might lead to injury.

OUR TUESDAY DATES We will be meeting September 25, 2007; October 1, 2007; October 9, 2007; October 16, 2007; October 23, 2007 from 6:30-9:30 PM. We do not begin building right away on these evenings. We need supervision from around 7:00-9:15 PM. We need folks to help with projects on-stage, in Drama South and at Lewis Central High School.

OUR SATURDAY DATES We will also meet on October 8, 2007; October 13, 2007; October 20, 2007 and October 27, 2007 from 9:00 AM-9:00 PM. There are many conflicts with other activities and programs on each of those days. As a result, we offer students the opportunity to work one of several shifts. NO STUDENT MUST ATTEND FOR THE ENTIRE DAY. Some students choose to makeup time or to do more than one shift.

This is an very busy fall for us and we certainly would appreciate your help here.

CLICK HERE if you're willing to help supervise or build our THIEVES set.

COSTUMES COMMITTEE

NEEDED: One or two parents to help us make sure that students don't "swim in" or "bust out" of their costumes for our production of THIEVES. We anticipate that this will be a light production for costume alterations.

We are very thankful for the parents who helped us with ARSENIC & OLD LACE and INTO THE WOODS which were huge costume productions. We will certainly need much more help for our spring musical.
Normally students are responsible for the cost of ONE RENTAL for any production in which he/she acts. In this production we will be asking students to find costumes from GOODWILL, purchases or from the closets of someone other than their own. It is important to us that a student's costume is either a new piece of clothing or clothing that doesn't belong to him/her.

Of course, it's no different than the experience we have had during Halloween when we're young or a costume party that we might attend.

In the end, costumes help our actors assume the role of another character. They really are lots of fun for our student actors. It's important to us that clothing reflects "character", "personality" and "attitude."

CLICK HERE if you're willing to help us alter costumes for THIEVES.

TECH DAY LUNCH TEAM

NEEDED: Parents know the way to their kid's hearts, right? "Food glorious food" is a great way to temporarily win any teen-ager's heart. As you know, our PERFORMING ARTS students are very busy in programs that are competitive on the state-level in all of the Performing Arts.

We will be very busy in building our set and allowing our students to do "their share" as a member of our team. It would be great if we could celebrate the work-ethic of our students as other parents have in the past.

Student's DO NOT need extravagant meals to be happy. Sloppy joes, hot-dogs, cold-cuts are all great and inexpensive meals. It's amazing to see what a great sloppy joe, a few chips and a cold-drink can to make a group of teen-agers happy.

So, if you're not up to organizing the event, you might be willing to buy a bag of chips, some hot dog buns or a cube of soft-drink, right?!? If you're able, it's a great way to contribute. LOOK AT OUR TECH DAY SCHEDULE FOR MORE INFORMATION. Feeding our students helps us save time and students save money. Teams also benefit a great deal from breaking bread.

There are some rules about food in our auditorium that we need to observe. We want to make sure that our auditorium stays a beautiful place for our students to perform. As a result, we cannot serve food in the auditorium or commons. However, there are places that we can serve food. We just need to fill out the correct paper-work.

CLICK HERE if you'd be willing to help sponsor a TECH DAY MEAL.

TICKET TAKERS

NEEDED: Two sets of parents to take tickets each night. Ushers and ticket-takers see the show at no cost! We could use a few others that might be able to help put together a fund-raiser in the lobby OR a lobby display. Ticket-takers need to show up on the night of each production at 6:15 or 6:30 PM.

Mr. McLaughlin is NOT available during this time as he is busy with great TRADITIONS to help students succeed. Not to worry, though, everything that you need will be ready for you when you arrive. We'll have a money bucket for you, a table, plenty of program & help from our FOH (Front of House) students.

Ticket takers are also very important at helping us catch folks with cameras and other recording tools before they take these into the production and distract other patrons and the students on stage.

Most of the people who show up on the night of our show have already purchased tickets. So, there's really not much money changing hands. Even though we do a great job of selling tickets in advance, we generally have many seats for sale on the nights of our show.

What's really great about your contribution to the show is that you'll be our "first impression." If you've been around as long as I have, you know that first impressions can last a lifetime. So....this is a great and awesome responsibility. This is a popular committee with parents...so, first come, first served.

CLICK HERE if you're interested in taking tickets on a performance night.