Whitefield Elementary School drama club advisor Elise Voigt (left) provides direction to students as they rehearse their play during a drama club meeting the afternoon of Tuesday, April 2. (Piper Pavelich photo)
Students participating in Whitefield Elementary School’s drama club are sporting their creative sides as they rehearse a play that they created about the circus during meetings Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
The Whitefield Elementary School drama club has become a place for students to let their personalities shine. Nearly 20 students from fourth to eighth grade began meeting on March 9.
Each student took on a role in the play that they can revise to fit their wants and needs. For example, during the drama club meeting the afternoon of Tuesday, April 2, some students requested that their character have more or less lines.
“It’s very fun because everyone gets to do the thing they dream to do,” said drama club advisor Elise Voigt.
Voigt, a trained actress and theater educator, took on the role of drama club advisor nearly two years ago. While the students came up with the inspiration for the play, Voigt wrote the script so they would have something to reference during rehearsals.
As an actor, Voigt’s passion is improvisation, which she enjoys working on with students because of their young, creative minds.
“It’s just easy with improv, because anyone can come up with an idea and come up with a character … Everybody kind of gets an equal share this way, too,” said Voigt.
When she’s not teaching the students how they can “ad lib,” or perform without a prepared script, during a scene, Voigt is teaching them the fundamentals of performing, such as how lines need to contribute to the storyline and how to work collaboratively with scene partners.
Each time they meet, students in the drama club start by splitting into small groups with their scene partners, practicing lines, and discussing the scenes. After that, they rehearse all together.
Many students in the drama club are fourth graders, according to Voigt, and they are currently learning Maine Studies, a program offered through the University of Maine that explores the places, people, culture, history, and stories of Maine, according to umaine.edu. The group decided they would include things being taught in the program into the play.
“So we decided that the circus would be through the state of Maine. Traveling through the state to get to Portland circus,” said Voigt. “That’s been fun, to integrate things that they’re learning into the performance.”
Some members of the drama club, such as seventh grader Chiara Wright, happened upon the drama club more recently.
“I saw my sister was here, and she was having fun, and I was like, ‘That kind of seems like fun, maybe I should try it out,’” said Wright.
Wright said she enjoys trying different things, and, so far, drama club is a good fit for her.
Voigt wants joining the drama club to be as flexible as possible so students can feel like they can jump into drama club at any time. The script is flexible and any student can find a place in the play, said Voigt.
“Don’t try to think drama club is somewhere where you can’t be yourself,” said Whitefield Elementary School student and Voigt’s daughter, Rosemary Pope.
Currently, students and Voigt are working on creating act two.
“It’s very loosey goosey, it’s very unconventional, but I want it to be accessible … Whoever wants to show, come up, come and show,” said Voigt. “I want the most amount of kids to show up that want to be here.”
The drama club will perform its play in the Whitefield Elementary School gym on Thursday, April 25, according to Voigt.
