I got the chance to work with high/middle school students today with a couple of workshops for the Indiana Thespian State Conference at St. Mary's College in South Bend, IN.
Morning
The day started with waking up at 5 AM and driving to South Bend. I was all set to use a Starbucks gift card but found at that Starbucks wasn't open that early in the morning; however, Dunkin Donuts was open so I got my donuts and coffee from there. C'mon Starbucks, really? Homie woke up every morning because it was "Time to make the donuts"! You're too sophisticated to wake up that early to do the same? #LostBusiness. The drive was pretty uneventful as I listened to YouTube and YouTube Music along the way to keep me company.
Navigating a college campus in the dark is difficult. Hardly anything resembling signs are lit well and of course the names of the buildings are always on the side you're never on. So, I ended up by accident parking in the right place using a PDF map and stumbling my way over to where my first workshop was - at 8:15 AM ET.
To be honest I wasn't too optimistic that I would get a good attendance for my Intro to Improv workshop as it was really early. As I showed up to my room, I saw three students sitting outside eating and talking. I greeted them and opened the door to my room. I was immediately disappointed. The room was a boxy, traditional college classroom complete with desks and chairs. All of that equipment would severely limit how much room we would have to move around. I immediately sprung into action and rearranged the room by pushing desks against wall and chairs underneath. I was pretty proud of myself as I opened the room pretty well - until the students walked in.
I had 40+ students and chaperons stuffed into this room. Our first warm up with to do a circle warm up but with so many people, someone suggested a second circle in the middle. At first I was against it but then figured "Why not?" So, we got a second circle in the middle set up. As I was going to start my first exrcise, the door opens up and an adult peeks in. She asks, "Do you have room for more?" I say, "We'll make room. Bring 'em in!" "We have 11", she says. I think about it and say "Yep. We'll make room." I turned to the room and said, "Make room for a third circle!".
I scrapped all of my plans and said, "We're doing a three layer Zip Zap Zop". I explained how I wanted them to play it; they would pass energy by making eye contact with another player and pass it along. The goal was to try to get through all three layers each time. It worked like a charm. I debriefed the exercise and discovered a new way to do a tired exercise and make it exciting. Plus, I got to demonstrate the idea that listening important; had I not listened to the suggestion, I would have never found this version of the game. The rest of the workshop got us to the point of improvising some games and was well received.
Mid-Day
I took lunch in the student center by paying for a morning brunch buffet. It was pretty good. The area has a very open atmosphere and every seemed nice. I did notice that there were a lot of women in the dining area but I didn't pay any mind to it. I ate my food quietly at a table and by myself while watching politically charged YouTube clips. As I walked out, I noticed a big sign pointing to a lunch for the conference. I was like, "Cot damn it. They provided food and I didn't know!" Luckily it was a boxed lunch so I took it and decided it would be my dinner later on.
I then decided to check out the vendors and recruiters at the events and struck up conversations with a bunch of them. I'll spare the details here but I got three interested parties into bringing me and/or a group of mine out to expand their curriculum with improv workshops. I also got a chance to reconnect with a former artistic associate from Salsation who had worked their butts off to become a professor and leader of a program at one of the universities. We exchanged pleasantries and talked a lot of shop around our journeys from the point we played in Salsation together to getting to our current positions. As a teacher, it was nice to feel that I was a bit on par with his academic roadmap. I have super respect for "real" teachers especially in the public school system as they have such a hard job taming the craziness of youth while trying to embed some knowledge into the hard heads of these kids.
Afternoon
I also took the time to beg for a new room as I knew I'd have a lot of people for my second, more advanced workshop. I connected with the right folks and my wish was granted (I owe them a beer or two since we had to swap out another class for mine to get the room). The second workshop was just as killer as the first one and held a couple of surprises. The first being that when I went around the room getting names, pronouns, and reasons for being there, I had a few students come back to the workshop due to how much the really enjoyed the first one. That warmed my heart and boosted my ego to end. The second was I was able to stuff a lot of games and participation into a 1.25 hour workshop and walk out there with most kids really enjoying themselves. An hour fifteen isn't much time to go into more advanced concepts bu tI feel I pulled it off in a cohesive manner. It also helped that I had one of the aforementioned teachers wanting to collaborate take the class so I got to show my value to him and give him a taste of what I could do with his students.
Before I went home, I decided to hit the student center again just in case they decided to serve dinner. I once again saw a huge queue right outside the dining room area so I went inside and saw a full Italian spread waiting to be served by the staff. I ended up striking up a conversation with the manager in charge along with many of the servers and was able to get a to-go box filled with goodies for the ride home.
Summary
Overall, this was a pretty fruitful day. I've got some gigs out of it while getting paid to share what I already know. I reconnected with an old friend and made some new ones. All in all, it was a success.
