Extending BTS Arts After School – BTS Arts Drama Production

Spencer Duncan, the BTS Arts drama teacher at Elk Meadows Elementary in Jordan School District, goes above and beyond for his students! Not only does he do a wonderful job integrating drama into their core curriculum during the school day, he also stays after school to engage students in musical theater productions. Last year, 5^th and 6^th grade students were invited to audition and perform in the musical Annie.

In Annie, students not only made up the entire cast, but they were also in charge of the lighting design and operation, sound operation, stage management, set painting, props, set dressings, and ushering. Sixty-five 5^th– and 6^th-grade students were involved in the entire production with 47 actors and 18 crew members. Parents were very involved as well, with 53 adults helping backstage, making costumes, providing makeup, and donating items. He also had two other educators supporting the production.

Mr. Duncan started the process of auditions early in the school year in August. Rehearsals were every day after school for 1.5-2 hours, up until their performances in mid-November. It was a lot of work, but he felt that doing this project after school hours was important. This way, he didn’t have to work around the school schedules and all students who wanted to participate could, including students from the school’s social-emotional behavioral unit.

In addition to providing his students with an authentic theatre experience, he continued the integration of drama with their social studies curriculum throughout the process. Because Annie is set in the Great Depression, students were assigned character studies to learn what life would have been like for their characters, including their economic status. Students also studied important historical figures of the time such as FDR.

After months of rehearsal and learning, the students were delighted to perform for their peers and families. They provided a matinee performance as a whole-school assembly, as well as two evening performances. Though things didn’t go perfectly (as they rarely do in theatre), his students overcame obstacles such as COVID-19 illness and sound equipment malfunction like champs!

We asked Mr. Duncan if he has any advice for other drama teachers who are looking to provide after-school productions. He said to make sure your community is on board. A supportive principal and parents make such a difference! Mr. Duncan was able to delegate a lot to parent volunteers, which made his job much more manageable. He encourages teachers to reach out to parents and ask for their support during the audition process. Providing a box on the parents’ form to indicate if and what parents are willing to do to help makes it easy from the get-go. Advocacy and support is a huge part of making an arts program successful. Last year, Mr. Duncan obtained over $10,898 in donations and grants to put on the production and to help compensate for his after-work hours.

This was the first time that Mr. Duncan had done an after-school production and now plans to hold one every other year. This school year will be an informance year, rather than an after-school production. He looks forward to providing informances this year as well as planning the after-school production for the next year. In the future, he plans to invite more legislators to enjoy the fruits of the students’ labor. He did invite one legislator who was unable to attend, but knows that it’s important for our state lawmakers to see how impactful the BTS Arts program is and to encourage more arts advocacy across the state.