THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605080117
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Hallelujah! These children have seen the light.
It is as bright as the fourth-grade electricians who worked on the footlights.
When they got it all together, they carried the board with the large lights to the stage and plugged it in. It lit up. So did their smiles.
The 40-minute student-produced opera, ``Knock Three Times,'' is being presented by The Imagination On Stage Production Company, a name Lori Mounie's fourth-graders dreamed up.
Indeed, they dreamed up the whole thing - dialogue and music. They are doing the costuming, carpentry and makeup, taking care of the lights; they are writing, performing, managing and handling the public relations.
Youngsters involved in the latter designed the company logo, the T-shirts and the invitations.
``Everyone has a job, all 30 students,'' Mounie said. ``It's important to remember that everything you see and hear is student made.''
It was their idea to offer a story with a moral to it. They chose honesty.
The story concerns a group of kids in a club who are trying to raise money for playground equipment. One youngster gets upset because he wasn't chosen club president. Then, the money raised is missing.
``The script took several weeks,'' said Duane Rollins, the 9-year-old head writer.
The drama is the result of a lot of student brainstorming.
``The children wrote the music by humming it to Sondra Morgan, the music teacher. She wrote it down for the accompanist,'' Mounie said.
``We had the words, then listened to how the piano blends,'' said Brianna Moreland. ``We hummed it. Mrs. Morgan put our humming down as a musical note and sang it.
``If it didn't fit,'' she explained, ``we changed the beat.''
A song is born.
The idea for the opera was born because Mounie spent part of her summer three years ago taking a 10-day class at Yale University, sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Company's Education Department.
``The only criteria for the intensive course was that you must be a teacher with enough interest and enough oomph to do it,'' said Mounie, who taught at Churchland Academy three years, before moving to Bowser in 1995.
``It's my first year here, and I love it. I like the small school atmosphere,'' the 30-year-old teacher said, ``and I like the support of the staff and the principal.''
One problem that could have thwarted her plans was lack of funds, but the Suffolk Education Foundation and the Virginia Committee for the Arts came through with grants.
The opera is proving a good educational tool ``because,'' Mounie said, ``the skills the children learned in the classroom are coming together.''
Some examples are mathematics for measuring the stage, language arts for developing characters and conflicts, science which helped with building footlights.
Another lesson is cooperation.
``Each child knows that his job is important and that he shouldn't let the company down,'' Mounie said.
But, as with any performing company, conflicts arise.
``There is some arguing, but I tell them to stop it or they'll have to separate. That happened twice,'' said Angela Giuiliano, the 9-year-old no-nonsense stage manager.
Some of the classrooms working on the production have the look of chaos.
Looks can be deceiving.
``I call it active learning. It's hands-on, learning by doing,'' Mounie said. ``The students' goal is to put on a good production.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Andre Haden, front, rehearses his part in ``Knock Three Times.''
by CNB