Drama Program at TOPS Transcript

Nicholas Schirmer - Librarian & Drama Teacher, TOPS K-8

For the last eleven years we have had a comprehensive drama program at TOPS. Starting in the 4th grade, kids learn basic drama skills, how to work as an ensemble and how to act on stage. This leads directly into 5th grade, which is our 5th grade play.

Every year we have a playwright write an original play for our two 5th grade classes which they perform on stage. We have an incredibly high success rate of giving every kid the opportunity to be on stage. The work they do in 5th grade directly leads into our middle school electives. In the fall we have playwriting with the same playwright that writes the 5th grade play. She comes in to help a whole cohort of students develop and write their own plays. It’s amazing to watch these kids shine, especially when they are initially nervous on stage or don’t think it’s something they’ll ever be able to do.

The 5th grade play is one of the biggest, well attended events here at TOPS, with all of the 5th grade parents and Kindergarten buddies who love to come see their 5th graders perform. It’s a really special event. I love it personally. Working together is a skill that kids need to develop, a lot of it helps with teamwork. Some of our struggling readers get amazing amounts of confidence from memorizing lines.

All of the work we do in elementary school goes directly into 6th grade and middle school. Students start developing their own plays. It’s a 10 week long elective in the fall where students write and develop their own original plays. In springtime they have the opportunity to produce those plays. We take plays from TOPS and one other school that our playwright works at. They read a bunch of plays, they vote on their favorites and then we produce those plays. This quarter we are producing four plays and three of them are written by TOPS students. Some of the kids are in the acting class and it’s their play. So, you really get to see the talent develop and thrive, it’s a great continuum.

We have three teaching artists that come in and work with us, they are all professional actors, playwrights and choreographers. The money from Friends of TOPS goes directly to fund these teaching artists. They are fantastic teaching artists that we’ve had a long standing relationship with. They put on these classes, they do all the plans, they write the plays and they run the whole program.