Starting a Drama Program from Scratch

Episode 135: Starting from Scratch Ruth Mirabella was asked to start a middle school drama program three years ago. They had the smallest stage imaginable and no sound equipment.  Since she began, Ruth has more than doubled student interest. How did she do it? What did she do? How do you start from scratch? Show Notes * The Redemption of Gertie Green Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Episode 135! You can find any links to the episode in the show notes at theatrefolk.com/episode135. Okay. So, today, we are talking about building – not buildings – building. How do you start from ground zero? Ruth Mirabella did it and she’s going to tell us how. It’s a tour de force kind of energy that Ruth has and, I have to say, I love hearing stories like this. It makes me feel like drama programs are possible – they’re possible to start up, they’re possible to maintain, and they can thrive. You can start from scratch. So often, the stories we hear are those about removal of the arts from school systems or from after school programs so let’s listen to a success story. Take it away, Ruth! LINDSAY: Today, I am happy to be talking to Ruth Mirabella. Hello, Ruth! RUTH: Hello, Lindsay! LINDSAY: Ah! Tell everybody where you are in the world? RUTH: I am in Butler, New Jersey. Kind of in the northern part, about 40 minutes west of New York City. LINDSAY: Ah! All right, awesome! How long have you been a teacher? RUTH: Well, let’s see, I have been helping to run middle school drama programs for the past nine years. We started at one school. I started as helping out doing the choreography and kind of as a vocal coach and a general “hey, that doesn’t work, let’s try this kind of person.” LINDSAY: So, the guinea pig person? RUTH: Yeah, kind of – the “hey, the stage is not balanced, that’s not working, wait a minute, you know, we don’t have an entrance for this person” – you know, whatever it kind of was. LINDSAY: You know what, everybody needs that kind of person who can just go, “All right, let’s try this and let’s hope nobody gets injured.” RUTH: Ain’t that the truth! LINDSAY: Okay. So, what we’re going to talk to you today is about you started a program basically from scratch. RUTH: Yeah. Three years ago, the school that my children attended closed so we moved to a new school that had no drama program whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the school in general has a very little in a way of the arts. Like, they have a music program, they have an art teacher, but they don’t really incorporate the arts much into education which makes me a little crazy. And so, when they asked if I would start a drama program, I was like, “Sure, why not? How bad could it be?” LINDSAY: Again, again, the guinea pig. RUTH: Yes, and, you know, it was like, “Here, we’re going to give you some teachers to act as moderators but they have no theatre experience. One of them has a little bit but only, really, as an actor or actress onstage. She’s never ran a program or worked backstage or had any formal training,” which is fine because she was gung-ho to sort of take on stage crew which is great because it’s really hard to direct and do stage crew at the same time. LINDSAY: Agreed.