North Harford High School’s drama two class has hit the road. Students have been touring local elementary schools performing a “children’s play for three local elementary schools for free, so it counts as community service,” says drama teacher Mrs. Nancy Green.
The first stop on the tour list was on May 10 at North Bend Elementary. On May 22, the group headed to Edgewood Elementary School. The tour will finish up at Norrisville Elementary on May 28.
The play selected by Drama two to perform was, “Red Versus the Wolf,” says Green, which is, “a children’s play that reveals the wolf’s perspective of Red Riding Hood.”
The tradition of performing at elementary schools is “a long standing tradition for more than 20 years at NHHS,” Green says, “Except for those few years that we could not due to Covid a children’s play was the first kind of play I ever did as a drama teacher.”
Green says, “We have often performed at Norrisville, we have performed for NHES and North Bend, [and] even William S. James [Elementary] in the early years of the tour.”
These three schools were selected because they “reached out to me and inquired about a collaboration this fall,” explains Green. The educators said this year a new school joined the roster. “Edgewood is a new venue for us, but we are excited as many of the magnet kids performing actually attended elementary school there,” Green said.
Every year, drama two tries to, “visit at least three schools each year,” but one of the biggest challenges is trying “to schedule anything this time of year due to testing in either the elementary or here,” says Green.
Preparation for this event has been happening since August, according to Green. In class the, “student director, [junior] Kira-Victoria Holt, has been running rehearsals.”
During these class time rehearsals, Holt has been “coaching actors on movement, characterization, and voice. They have been rehearsing the production for months and have designed all of the tech, costumes, and makeup, which required crazy face painting for the animals,” Green said.
The future of this annual tradition, “remains a question, since the advanced classes of drama will be combined, and this has traditionally been a Drama two project,” says Green. “The challenges of scheduling also present a problem” says Green. Another challenge is “kids missing school for field trips,” as well as, “testing is a conflict this time of year,” says Green. Green says that, “While it has been an amazing tradition for 27 years, this may be the last one we can possibly do.”
