By Jill Draper
Sometimes a theatrical show seems like pure magic, but show business pros know there’s a lot of hard work that happens before the curtain rises. A program that links entertainment professionals with theater students who want to learn this work has been meeting for the past year at the Arts Asylum in Brookside.
The program, called the South KC Performing Arts Academy, involves students from three high schools—Center, Grandview and Ruskin—who meet one day a month to learn the backstory of theatrical magic and all that goes into a full-scale production.
And because funding for the arts is always precarious, on April 3 some of those same students traveled to Jefferson City to learn the backstory of state laws and regulations during Fine Arts Education Day. They received training from lobbyists and met with staff from both the Senate and House, including two politicians who once attended their schools: Rep. Mark Sharp, who recognized the students on the House floor, and Rep. Anthony Ealy, who discussed ways that art can help shape a community.
The Performing Arts Academy is funded by the Kauffman Foundation’s Real World Learning Initiative, and the Jefferson City trip was one way to prepare the students for what it’s like in the real world, says Courtney Perry, educational director at the Arts Asylum. Other ways include studying sound design, costume design, set design and construction, marketing and choreography.
“You don’t have to be the loud person on the stage,” Perry says. “So much more happens in the theater world than acting.”
Perry, a visual artist and fashion designer, and her husband, a lighting and set designer, co-own a theatrical supply business in the same building as the Arts Asylum. Vanessa Davis, who helps teach the academy students, is an actor and director. Together they’re in a good position to provide students with a variety of experiences and connections. There are other arts-focused schools, they say, but not many associated with working theater professionals.
Recently several members from the cast of “Clue” came to the Arts Asylum to do a master class for the students on vocals and choreography, and actors from “To Kill a Mockingbird” presented an acting audition class. Next September the students will witness an inhouse production of “Reefer Madness.”
“It’s a very technically heavy show with the type of lights, sound, costumes and blood involved,” Perry says. Theatrical blood comes in different viscosities, by the way, and broken glass on stage is made from sugar—little things the students come to know.
It’s the big things, though, that Perry emphasizes. Things like how to think on your feet, collaborate with team members and empathize with others.
Last fall the academy students started the school year by watching a 2002 film called “The Laramie Project” about the gay University of Wyoming student Mathew Shepard who was tied to a prairie post and tortured to death. The high schoolers had never heard of him.
“We show them there’s an artistic way to tell a story, even about a hate crime, and you can be powerful enough to tell your own story,” Davis says. “When you’re younger, you don’t think about this.”
Perry says kids want to write about the things they’re going through, and on April 19 at Ruskin High the Performing Arts Academy showcased three vignettes written by students, who also did the casting, props, costumes and lighting while working with playwright and novelist Olivia Hill.
Some of the students have landed internships and paid jobs through their experience with the academy. But whether or not theater becomes their adult career, it’s still a crucial high school class, Perry says.
“Theater, and any creative act, is mental health—100 percent absolutely. We’re doing a disservice to kids by not teaching them early how to communicate and have conversations. I can say very firmly that I have never used the Pythagorean theorem once in my life, but the tools I learned in my communications class I use all the time.”
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