Child’s Play At Reed School

By Laurie Borst

Child’s Play Touring Theatre took over the cafetorium at Reed Intermediate School on the morning of May 30 and performed two vignettes written by Reed students.

The Chicago-based troupe began its mission of turning student writing into performance pieces in 1978. Since then, more than 15,000 children have seen their works come to the stage. Child’s Play puts on more than 400 plays and workshops each year.

Besides performing, Child’s Play holds workshops for students and teachers to spark the creative process. The workshops aim to awaken students to the limitless subject matter in the world around them and help them learn to organize their material.

The Reed PTA’s Cultural Arts Committee started the process last fall by bringing in the group for workshops. Working in small groups, students began to write their stories. Reading Specialist Pam Kohn coordinated events and helped students develop their ideas.

In January, student work was submitted to Child’s Play for judging. Twenty-four students were honored for their work and three students had their work performed by the professional troupe.

Sixth graders Celeste Cheung and Jessica Haitz wrote the poem, “The Bullies on the Block,” about dealing with bullies. Fifth grader Anders Fogelberg wrote “From Rich to Richer,” about a rich businessman who loses his money, but finds satisfaction in gardening and friends.

Child’s Play performances are high energy, creative endeavors filled with lots of groan-worthy puns, quick costume changes, painted scenery murals Velcroed to frames, and upbeat music. Two plays saw audience members, including one teacher, brought on stage as “extras.” Audience members were brought on stage to take parts and at strategic moments, the audience was cued to yell different phrases.

Besides the two pieces by Reed students, the troupe also performed The Adventures of Super Pencil and Lead Lad about evil Dr Mechanical’s plot to control Graphite City with his army of permanent markers. Dr Mechanical pulled two students from the audience and asked the first, “Are you an evil one?” and then, “Are you evil, too?” When the students replied yes, they received nametags, Evil 1 and Evil 2.

The other two skits were The Middle Kid Blues, based on a poem about, what else?, the trials of being the middle kid, and A Pirate, a takeoff on life at sea.

Caitlin Yakush, a fifth grader, said, “The plays were good. The authors had a lot of imagination.”

Caroline Kurtz, also a fifth grader, observed, “The play was really fun and funny. It’s cool to know who the authors are.”

Joe Lewis, one of the actors in the troupe, left the students with this message, “To be a good writer, you first have to be a good reader.”

The following students were honored for their story an poem submissions: Julie Davin, “Today, I’m Sick!”; Justin DeVellis, “I Need Doughnuts”; Patrick Milano, Peter Grzybowski, and J.P. Blanco, “The Monkey Bar Debate”; Sam Langdon, Ryan Seymour, Taylor Rutter, Xavier Marmo, Jim Pearson, and Cody Jones, “Nightmare in Mexico”; Kristiana Engler, “Friendship in New York”; Stephanie Roman, “Me and Her”; Elizabeth LoCascio, “The Lost and Found Horse”; MacKenzie Hoctor and Mareena Mallory, “Friends, Sports, and One Fat Cat”; Quinton Marmo, “The Cold-Blooded Dragon”; Alex Taylor, “A Butler, a Fat Cat, and a Trillionaire”; Meaghan Davis, “A World Series That Almost Didn’t”; Lindsay Hughes, “Trouble With Librarians”; Colleen Cosgrove, “A New Friend”; Alexis Black and Danielle Ford, “Bob vs. Bobbet”; Gabriel Ruiz, “Turk, the Turkey I”; and Danielle Vabner, “Burkhart.”