It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hey Kids! It’s a new March! The first and only one of 2018! And I’m very sure that we all know what that means….

THEATRE IN OUR SCHOOLS!

Woooooooooooo! A whole month of advocating sounds absolutely fantastic, and just what we need to keep advancing educational theatre all around the state, or at least it feels that way until you stop to think about all that advocating and how exactly you’re going to do it…. 

Don’t worry, we all can feel like that sometimes. Fighting for the cause can be a daunting task, and when you try to tackle it head on without a plan, you can get a little lost. FEAR NOT, however, because we’re here to do the best we can to help you keep that fighting spirit!

The first step is to give you guys the tools for advocating, so keep up with the blog during March to get some nice and easy ways to spread awareness and love for educational theatre. See, I’ll start us off!
IDEA #1:
One of the cool things about educational theatre is that one of it’s many uses is to.. You know… educate! So take the initiative to spread some amazing and kind of weird facts about theatre around your school! Maybe your school has an announcements broadcast, get it on there! Or Maybe find an empty space on the wall to tape them up daily for all passerby to see!

Here’s a couple facts to get you started:
DID YOU KNOW THAT...
1. ‘Theatre’ comes from a Greek verb meaning ‘to behold’
2. Shakespeare's Globe is the only building in London allowed to have a thatched roof since the Great Fire in 1666
3. Two seats are permanently bolted open at the Palace Theatre for the theatre ghosts to sit in
4. William Shakespeare once had to play Lady Macbeth when Hal Berridge, the boy playing her, died suddenly
5. Walt Disney World, Florida, has a record 1.2 million costumes in its theatrical wardrobes
6. Theatre has a longstanding history in America. The first theatre here was built in Virginia in 1716, 60 years before the Declaration of Independence
7. When Shakespeare’s Globe burned down in 1613, the one casualty was a man whose breeches caught fire; they were put out with a bottle of ale.
8. Thespis is the man first credited with the role of an actor, he stepped forward from the greek chorus to portray a character (giving us the name thespians!)
9. In May 1849 the Astor Place riot broke out in New York and it was caused by two actors arguing over who was better at performing Shakespeare.
10. The word ‘tragedy’ comes from a Greek expression translating roughly to ‘goat song’
11. Ancient Greek audiences stamped their feet rather than clapping their hands to applaud
12. The oldest play still in existence is The Persians by Aeschylus, written in 472 BC.
13. World Theatre Day has been held on March 27 every year since 1962 when it was the opening day of the “Theatre of Nations” season in Paris.
14. The original concept for West Side Story was East Side Story where a Jew and a Catholic fall in love.
15. Saying "Break A Leg" in the theatre didn't start until the 1920s.
16. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running Broadway show of all time.

Best of luck, and remember - ADVOCATE AND APPRECIATE

Please be sure to tell us all about your ways of advocating by posting about it and tagging us or contacting us directly!