Schools
North, South Students Come Together To Put On A Show (VIDEO)
They wrote and performed their western-themed show Thursday night at North
Jordan Fox wasn’t nervous.
While she was minutes away from performing in a play for the first time, the Clarkstown South High School 11th grader was perfectly calm.
“I love getting on stage and showing people how I can perform,” she said. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. We’re going to have fun.”
Shortly after, Fox and 30 fellow students went on stage Thursday night at Clarkstown North and performed the “Wild West Show,” a roughly half hour play full of skits and poems the group wrote together after school.
The group performed the play as part of Unified Theater, a national non-profit organization run by students. It was the first show for the North branch of United Theater, which teams up high school students who enjoy performing with high school students with special needs who also like performing. The students from South come from the .
The SPIRIT program and North students previously worked together on the Art Inclusion Project, in which the groups met up after school to dance, paint and collaborate on many other arts projects. The Arts Inclusion Project was run by Clarkstown North Art and Technology Department Chair Nancy Diamond. She learned about Unified Theater and thought it would fit in with what the two schools were working on with the Arts Inclusion Project, so she applied for a grant with the school’s PTSA. She enlisted the help of Tim Reid, who runs North’s theater program.
“The kids put a lot of work into this show and it came out great,” said Laura Goodman, South’s school psychologist. “But the main takeaway for them, I think, is it’s a benefit to their social skills.”
Maggie Andresen, a senior at North and one of student leaders of the show, said her biggest benefit from the United Theater program has been all the friends she’s made.
“We got to know each other right away, although some of us knew each other from Arts Inclusion already,” she said. “We eliminated cliques and boundaries that would’ve otherwise kept some of us apart and put on a really diverse show. We have steppers and a light show and all these skits.”
Also performing in the show were the Clarkstown North Rampagers, the school’s step squad, and Anton Repnikov, who was the show’s “Techno Cowboy,” performing a crowd-pleasing light show.
The group started working on the play in November, writing it together after school before moving onto rehearsals. They met once a week. Reid said the plan is to try and do one United Theater show a year from now on.
