!A DOCUMRNT RRSUOIR ED 032 307 TE 001 527 By -Hoetker, James; And Others The Educational Laboratory Theatre Project 1968-1969: AReport on its Operations. Central Midwestern Regional Educational Lab., St. Ann, Mo. Pub Date 69 Note -497p. Available from-Mrs. Verna Smith, Central MidwesternRegional Educational Laboratory, Inc., 10646 St. Charles Rock Road, St. Ann, Missouri 63074 (free) EDRS Price Mr -$2.00 HC-S24.95 Descriptors -Acting, Drama, *Dramatics, EducationalObjectives, *English Instruction, Experimental Programs, *Program Descriptions, Program Effectiveness, SchoolCommunity Programs, School Community Relationship, Student Reaction, Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Education,*Theater Arts Identifiers -*Educational Laboratory Theatre Project This end-of-the-year report on the operationsof the Educational Laboratory Theatre Project is divided into three sections.The first consists of historical accounts of the operation in Rhode Island, NewOrleans. and Los Angeles. Among the subjects covered for each area are an overviewof the. project, vitalstatistics, press coverage, prospectsfor the next year, and reactions to the projectfrom students, teachers, and community members. The second sectioncontains reports of the results of several studies carried out during the year onsuch topics as audience response. the effects of the New Orleans touringshow, improvisation and the teachingof literature, curriculum development andteacher training, and the objectivesfor teaching drama held by English teachers, dramateachers, actors, and administrators. The third section contains the CentralMidwestern Regional EducationalLaboratory's 1969-70 work statement and sectionsfrom a Master's thesis on theInner City Cultural Center Theatre. (LH) -t, The Educational Laboratory Theatre Project A Report on its Operations ns 0 September 1968 through August 1969 0 jJ U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. The EducationalLaboratory Theatre Project 1968 -69 James Hoetker Alan Engelsman Brian Hansen Mary Louise Barksdale Richard Robb Phyllis Hubbell Nancy Schanbacher Published by the Central MidwesternRegional Educational Laboratory, Inc.(CEMREL), a private non-profit corporation supported in part as a regional laboratoryby funds from the United States Office of Education, Departmentof Health, Education, and Welfare. The opinions expressed in this pub- lication do not necessarily reflectthe position or policy of the Office of Education, and noofficial endorsement by the Office of Education should beinferred. CENTRAL MIDWESTERN REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL LABORATORY, INC. 10646 ST. CHARLES ROCK ROAD, ST. ANN, MISSOURI 63074-314. 429-3535 In addition to the staff memberswhose names are listedon the title page, Mr. Gary Siegelhas assisted with data analysis and programming; andMrs. Pat Simmons, Mrs. Mary Kunstmann, and Miss DebbieNeary have worked throughthe year to make the preparation of thereport possible. EPIGRAPH An Excerpt From a Student Reaction to anEarlier Educational Theatre Experience.1 So he went to marching up anddown, thinking, and frowninghorrible every now and then;then he would hoist up his eyebrows; nexthe would squeeze his hand on his foreheadand stagger back and kind of moan; next he wouldsigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to seehim. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude,with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched away up,and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then hebegins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all throughhis speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up hischest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I seebefore. This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learningit to the king: To be, or not to be; that is thebare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life; For who would fardels bear, till BirnamWood do come to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something afterdeath Murders the innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scornsof time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man'scontumely, The law's delay, and the quietus whichhis pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle ofthe night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemnblack, But that the undiscovered countryfrom whose bourne no traveler returns, 1 As reported by Dr. S.L. Clemens, chief investigator of Middlewestern Boyhood Educational Adventures Projects. 1 Breathes forth contagionon the world, And thus the native hue of resolution,like the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er withcare, And all the clouds that lowered o'erour housetops, With this regard their currents turnawry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery--go! Well, the old man he liked that speech, andhe mighty soon got itso he could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when he had his hand in andwas excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he would rip and tear and rairup behind when he was getting it off. w. ft, i i PREFACE This is the third of CEMREL'send-of-year reports on the Educational Laboratory Theatre Project. It covers the final yearof the Project in Rhode Island and New Orleansand the second year in LosAngeles. At the close of the third seasonof the Los AngelesProject a compre- hensive final report will beproduced, synthesizing what wehave learned from our assessmentsof the Project in its threesites. In that report we will, in the courseof trying to construct amodel of who may be engaged in an ideal theatreproject, for the use of those and a similarundertaking in the future,explicitly compare the sites attempt to evaluate, as totheir contribution to theattainment of the objectives of the Project,the various aspectsof the three projects--management and supervision,school-theatre relations,problem- solving procedures, personnel,quality of theatricaland educational products, community relations,and so on. But the present report is notsynthetic or comparative,although inevitably, at times, there arecomparisons made or quoted,and there are some statementsabout the Project in aparticular site over its entire life, rather than in thelast yearonly. The main concern of this report, still, is to give ahistory of each of the threesites during the 1968-69 school year,and to report the findingsof studies carried out during that time. The report has three sections. The first consists ofhistorical accounts of the operationsin the three sites andof summaries of the reactions to the Project fromvarious quarters. The second section contains reports of the resultsof the various studiescarried out appendix during the year. The third section is inthe nature of an copies of instru- and contains CEMREL's1969-70 work statement, various ments, and othermiscellaneous documents. Certain documents referred to in this report are notincluded as part of the report. The three volumes of curriculummaterials, for example, andthe report on the proceedingsof the symposium onImprovisation and the Teaching be had from CEMREL upon of Literature. Copies of these documents may request. and nonjudgmental The CEMREL staff hasattempted to remain objective chapters, in most of its reporting. Only in the "Summaryand Prospects" which conclude the histories of eachof the sites, do we make personal judgments and recommendations,and even these are based upon the evidence presented. However, we includemany quotations from a variety of sources, most of whoare decidedly not objective. Except that positive opinions, whichwere much in the majority in all three sites, tend to be under-represented,the quoted opinions are representative of the range of viewswe have collected. We will let the reader draw hisown conclusions, from their tone and content, of the value of particularquoted opinions. The entire report is, ina real sense, the work of the whole CEMREL staff, eitheras writers or editors. In those cases where one or two persons have had primary responsibility for planning, supervising, and writingup a study, he or they will be identified in parentheses in the Table of Contents. One chapter, the report of the study of objectives held by variousgroups for the teaching of drama, has been accepted for publicationin the journal Research in the Teaching of English and is signedwith the authors' names. iv Table of Contents SECTION ONE: HISTORIES OF THE OPERATIONS Rhode Island Page Overview 1 Vital Statistics 4 Press Coverage 6 Community Reactions and Support 17 Student Reactions 30 Teacher and School Administrator Reactions 38 Theatre Company Reactions 53 Artistic Director's Statement (Adrian Hall) 60 An Evaluation of "Rhode Show" (Don Gardner) 64 Summary and Prospects for the Fourth Year 68 New Orleans Overview 70 Vital Statistics 75 Press Coverage 77 The Community Attitude Survey (Alan Engelsman) 92 The Protest Against Protest 102 Student Reactions 104 Teacher and School Administrator Reactions 112 Theatre Company Reactions 123 Producing Director's and Educational Supervisor's Statements