Saturday, October 23, 2010

Me and my musicals



I've told you before that I participated in some musicals when I was younger. After a question from Bart Boehlert I've been thinking about how much that has affected my life. I was very young when I bought the album Dreamgirls, and I remember me standing on the steps between the kitchen and living living room singing loudly with Jennifer Holliday "I'm telling you". After that I had a period in life when I just listened to Barbara Stresiand.



If I had grown up in a family with music ore theater traditions I think I would have looked for some kind of theater educations. I really loved the time on, but also behind the scene. But it wasn't in my mind that it could be something for me to do more than a hobby, it wasn't a real work.

So I didn't became an actress, a director ore a set designer. I'll just became a teacher.... But, now when I've been thinking about this for the first time in my life, I understand that it wasn't a bad choice. I really love my job, one day isn't like the other. My classroom is my scene and the pupils are both my audiences and my actors on a ordinary lesson. I have almost every subjects so I'm abel to plan a week and the days so it will be a good mix of tasks for the kids, like the director planing his work. When the children are painting and making pictures I try to arrange them with a suitable background ore putting them on the walls so It will be like a gallery.
But I have also put up a real musical with a class some years ago. It was about two children traveling around the world. I did it with an other teacher who was responsible for the music and I took care of the acting and scene-building. We had the audience in the middle of the gymnastic hall and the scenes were along the walls so the audience have to turn around during the play. I wanted to have it that way because than we could have all the props on site and only the spotlight was showing the right scene. The gymnastic hall was a perfect place for this because I could use terminals and ropes as pops. I made a ballooned of hula hoops and rings so it looked like it was flying.

I still like to dress up to be someone else for a day at the school when we have a special theme as the 100 year of celebrating. We don't have so much of Halloween here in Sweden but next week me and my colleagues are having a party and the theme will be pop-stars so I'm trying to find out who I'm gonna be...

...and finally I must say that all this "blogging" also is a way of searching for an audience who might find something interesting in my pics ore the things I write about even if it is a simple language.

Thanks Bart for asking me.

4 comments:

Jill from Killeny Glen said...

You do SUCH a wonderful job Ella!
I enjoy blogging so much yet there are times that I have NOTHING to say and I have to realize that is OKAY.

I ADORE Dreamgirls AND Barbara!

Deidra said...

Oh my goodness! We are kindred spirits! I had the soundtrack (they were albums back then) to just about every Broadway play when I was young. I belted out "I Am Telling You" and I wanted to BE Barbara Streisand. There were numerous "productions" in my basement that family and friends endured over and over again. I'm still a sucker for a musical.

It's interesting that you've made a connection between blogging and the search for an audience. I wonder if you feel you've found that here...an audience somewhere "out there" or an audience right where you are; there on your side of the screen?

Bart Boehlert said...

Hi Ella,
I enjoyed reading your post! I liked those records too very much. It's interesting how you connected theater with teaching. You put a lot of thought and creativity into your teaching, and it sounds like you are a great teacher. Your students are lucky --
Best,
Bart

Ella said...

Thanks so much for your comments on this post. Yes Deidra, I feel that I've a kind of audience here but also and even more important for me, I've got some new contacts, maybe some friends to share life experiences with. But I've decided that I have to keep this writing on my own site and reading others in a way that I don't put pressure on my self. I'm not going to write comments just to let someone know that I've read their post, I write when I have something to say. Thats what I expect of my readers. And Bart, I'm lucky to have very nice students.