Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 25, 1993 TAG: 9301230169
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ACTING OUT
In small groups around the room, pupils in Donna Speidel's fourth-grade class at Oak Grove Elementary School in Roanoke talked in whispers and arranged themselves into different positions.Three of them sat on the floor in a circle, swaying gently and holding hands. They were a pot. In their center stood a classmate, representing a spoon.
Others hunched down to form an oven with their bodies. One folded himself backwards over his heels to become the door.
Others sat on their haunches and faced each other, locking arms to approximate a table. Still others shaped themselves into rocking chairs and bed covers.
They were using their bodies to create items found in the giant's house in the tale called "Jack and the Bean Tree."
Rex Stephenson, their theatrical guru, watched, cajoling and encouraging them as they solved their many problems.
When all was done and the scene was played, they knew they had succeeded in establishing something vital to any theater piece, the illusion of reality.
Stephenson told them so. Professor of theater at Ferrum College and, not incidentally, the founder of the college's Jack Tale Players, he is visiting artist this month at the Roanoke County elementary school, directing fourth-graders in the Tales, improbable adventures of an Appalachian mountain boy named Jack.
He has shown teachers some dramatic techniques and helped youngsters in other classes to develop their own presentations, but fourth-graders are getting the bulk of his attention, "because that's when children are starting to become more inhibited," said Principal Margaret Moles.
They've listened to Stephenson tell a Jack Tale and then set about re-creating it through pantomime and script. They've put together props, scenery and costumes. They've taken a trip to Ferrum College to see the real Jack Tale players perform, and they'll put on their shows for parents, families and friends at the school Wednesday night at 7.
Stephenson is teaching them that theater is an enjoyable but serious business, a combination of imagination, concentration, communication, cooperation and, of course, courage.
"I think they thought the first day was the longest day of their lives," he said, with a laugh.
"It's fun," said fourth-grader Amanda Schendel.
She had just finished narrating "Jack and the Haunted House" while her classmates acted it out.
"I used to be shy," she said. "I'm not shy any more."
The thought of performing in front of an audience left Debra Crites "kind of nervous. I'm thinking of what I'm supposed to do next."
That's part of Stephenson's design - to involve the youngsters so deeply that the play becomes the thing, with the audience no distraction.
Fourth-graders are a lot different from the college students Stephenson usually teaches. "At Ferrum, everybody wants to be a star," he said. "Nobody wants to carry the sword."
At Oak Grove, he has been shifting roles around, letting different people play different parts. Only a few kids have asked what they'll be in the performance. Stephenson suspects they're merely repeating the question their parents have asked them at home.
Stephenson and his student assistant, Joey Stanley of Roanoke, were brought to Oak Grove with a $1,000 grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and a matching amount from the PTA. School personnel were familiar with his work: The Jack Tale Players performed at the school in 1990. Stephenson also was recommended by Shirley Boone, the language-arts coordinator, whose husband is president of Ferrum College.
The school's grant application listed three goals for the training: to integrate drama into curriculum, to provide practical experience and to help develop life skills.
It easily has done that, and it has also improved their communication, their imaginations and more.
"He really encourages what we call higher-level thinking," said teacher Barbara Eades.
The children work together, evaluate their results and try to improve upon their ideas. Everyone participates. When Stephenson praises their suggestions, they beam.
"I have begun using some of his techniques in my history class," Eades said. "We're dramatizing some of the events in history."
Stephenson's visit coincides with the fourth-graders' study of fable, fantasy and folklore. A busy man - he's researching a play about the USS Franklin, a World War II ship, collaborating on a play explaining the American economy and putting together a play about Booker T. Washington, in addition to teaching, running the Jack Tale Players and directing the summertime Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre - he says he likes the youngsters' energy most of all.
If nothing else, he wants to leave them with the knowledge that they can perform if they work at it.
Ask a class of first- and second-graders whether they can sing, act or dance and every hand will shoot up, he said.
"By the time I get 'em [in college], they think only people who can go into certain buildings can do those things.
"We let other people do our arts for us. We watch people on TV. That's why I push the kids to tell these stories."