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6th Annual Arts Institute
Integrate the Arts With Integrity
Dance, Drama, Literary Arts, Music, Visual Arts
In June of 2003, Buzz Schwall and Brian Hutton hit the highway in a borrowed Winnebago, pulling a trailerful of puppet theater behind them.
They were bound for the Kenai Peninsula College campus, for their first visit to the Annual Arts Institute*, where teachers from all over the state were meeting once again to learn new ways to integrate the arts into their curriculums in the Fall.
Buzz and Brian's mission was whimsy and the welcome was warm.
The week-long Puppetry in the Classroom workshop they had developed over the preceding months was to culminate in the puppet theater production of the children's classic, Maurice Sendac's "Where the Wild Things Are", entirely conceived, designed, constructed, and performed by the teachers who had signed up for the workshop.
It was to be the premiere appearance, as well, of the freshly built buzzoplex Puppet Theater stage.
Following some initial instruction, the teachers got right to work, picking a story they could adapt for the stage, designing and building the puppets, painting the scenery, inventing new ways to make movement happen, rehearsing with their characters...
The collaboration was seamless, as each of the teachers gravitated toward the tasks necessary to pull off the production in such a short amount of time.
One went after the Dragon. Another took on the Green-Haired Bear-Cat. The Wild Birdish Thing. The boat. The bed. The hanging vines. A crew of two invented the wacky dancing Wild Moose. Another group went off to design and paint the Forest of the Wild Things that would magically appear as Max arrived at the island. A soundtrack materialized, as teachers went off, as teachers will, to pull resources from thin air.
Buzz and Brian wandered through the room, offering help and hints and invitations to invent. Visitors dropped by throughout the week, to watch us work and spread anticipation
By Friday, we played to a fully receptive audience. Ah... sweet thing. There were even children present to be charmed.
The play stayed on another week to be produced again by the children who attended the Kids Week of the Arts Institute.
'Where the Wild Things Are' - The Play
Class of 2003
Alaska Staff Delopment Network
2003 Summer Academies
6th Annual Arts Institute
Integrate the Arts With Integrity
Dance, Drama, Literary Arts, Music, Visual Arts
A Program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Co-sponsored by:
Alaska Alliance for Arts Education
Arts in Education Program of the Alaska State Council on the Arts
Kenai Peninsula Borough School District
Kenai Peninsula College
Kenai Convention and Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Phi Delta Kappa, Kenai Peninsula Chapter