Play Acting

In less than an hour on Monday, students at Port St. Joe Elementary School wrote two plays and watched them performed by up-and-coming actors.

One dramatized George Washington’s efforts to rid himself of the chicken pox and another depicted an encounter between a hapless fisherman, the Loch Ness Monster and a weary fishmonger.

Both had dynamic dialogue, twisting plots and unforgettable characters.

The students were assisted in their efforts by the Playmakers, an acting troupe from the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, whose award-winning “Write a Play” program seeks to capture the imagination of budding playwrights.

The Gulf Alliance for the Local Arts (GALA), with assistance from the Forgotten Coast Cultural Association, sponsored the troupe, which traveled to all six county public schools this week.

Onstage in the school auditorium, the four Sarasota actors, dressed in fanciful multi-colored garb, walked (and sang and danced) the students through a lesson on playwriting fundamentals:  setting, characters, problem and dialogue.

To get the students’ creative juices flowing, the actors performed three short plays written by real-life school children.

The plays ranged from the surreal – a girl learns to listen to her mother after a fateful spin in a washing machine, to the poignant – a separated brother and sister ponder the nature of divorce over the telephone, to the comedic – a boy turns into a chicken and debates whether or not to keep his tail feathers.

In keeping with the day’s theme “Imagination Celebration,” the actors then invited the students to compose their own narratives.

Stepping into the audience, one actor prompted students to devise characters, settings, a problem and dialogue, as the other actors performed the drama onstage.

One student wrote George Washington’s opening line “I need a doctor,” and another diagnosed his ailment as chicken pox.

When one student suggested grass as an antidote, another foiled his plan with the words, “Wait that’s only for cowpox.”

Washington received his antidote – a raw egg rubbed vigorously over the infected area – at the price of his wooden teeth, a clever ad lib from the acting troupe.

The second play’s fisherman fared slightly better, winning a free meal from a fishmonger weary of his antics and those of a kleptomaniac Loch Ness monster.

The program, which concluded with hour-long writing workshops in the classroom, is intended to encourage students to write and submit original plays to the 2010 Young Playwrights Festivals.

All participating teachers received information on the festival to share with their students.

Port St. Joe Elementary School guidance counselor DeEtta Smallwood applauded GALA for its support of arts in education.

“We are thankful that we have organizations in our community that see a need to bring great groups like this to our school,” she said.