Kent Thompson is like any other parent. One day your tweener is happy to be seen with you in public. Then comes . . . high school.
Then, it doesn’t matter if you’re the artistic director of the Denver Center Theatre Company. You’re persona non dada.
“All through middle school, there seems to still be an interest in going with one’s parents to the theater, or a movie, or other cultural offerings,” Thompson said. “It’s such an interesting time, because kids that age have intellectually matured to the point where they can understand a lot of issues, but the world is starting to open up as a much more complex place to them,” he said.
Thompson has since applied his practical parenting theory to his theater seasons. The Denver Center’s education division serves a swath of ages, but he found an obvious gap in middle-school programming.
So last year, Thompson decided to target one play per season at students ages 10-13, their teachers and parents. The criterion: Known titles being taught at middle schools. He debuted with the Holocaust tragedy, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” He’s following with “The Miracle Worker,” which opened Thursday.
“I think the theater has a really powerful role that we can play,” Thompson said. “By giving them the chance to look at things in a different way, it’s also a chance for us to get them interested, activated and animated about the theater.”
This common-sense commitment to growing future audiences turned out to be risky. Thompson shifted 14 evening performances to field-trip matinees. Nearly $400,000 was raised to subsidize the slashing of student ticket prices by more than half, to $16.
While each play is presented with the same company resources as any other, Thompson removed the middle-school offering from his company’s subscription package because he wasn’t sure how compelling subscribers would find tales that focus on young people’s stories.
He needn’t have worried. All 14 “Anne Frank” school matinees sold out, drawing more than 6,000. But subscribers and patrons bought in as well. Overall, “Anne Frank” drew 21,694. That’s 3,700 more than had attended “Seasons Greetings” in the same slot the year before.
The staging was widely embraced by the Jewish community, and not only because Christian holiday productions dominate area stages at this time of year. “It’s because the play did a remarkable job of desentimentalizing the story and returning it to its Jewish roots,” said Thompson. “Anne Frank” also carried deep emotional resonance with Latino audiences. That, he attributes to pervasive hostility over immigration.
“While no Latino feels like they have gone through the same level of horror that Anne Frank and her family did, many do feel this sense of having to live under the radar,” Thompson said. “Whether they have an undocumented family member in the house or a friend down the street, they feel this sense that they are being watched, and that somebody might take action against them.”
Thompson calls his middle- school commitment an exercise in self-preservation. Adults are more likely to become theatergoers if they are introduced to plays before graduating college.
Middle school (grades 6 through 8) marks a profound change in young people, not only in their school curriculum but in their own transitions from adolescence to young adulthood. Thompson was energized when his son started studying subjects like civil rights, apartheid and the Holocaust — and came home from school eager to talk about them. Being the son of a Southern Baptist preacher, Thompson had plenty to lend to the conversation.
“When I told my son that, as a kid, I had played with the children of Martin Luther King, and that I had given an award to Rosa Parks, he was blown away,” said Thompson. “These kinds of conversations inevitably bring up the parents’ histories; the things they learned and went through.”
Play speaks to tweens
“The Miracle Worker” is the familiar story of blind teacher Anne Sullivan’s struggle to help the blind, deaf and feral young Helen Keller to communicate. It has evident resonance for the teaching and disabled communities, but Thompson also thinks it speaks intensely to all middle- schoolers. “Because at that age, everybody has a disability, or a perceived one,” he said. “And sometimes having a really committed and tough, demanding mentor is the only way we ever overcome it.”
He also thinks the play speaks to those frustrated parents who grow desperate with the trials of raising a child. Ultimately, he added, “it speaks to everyone about how we overcome obstacles in our lives that are seriously impossible to overcome.”
As his program progresses, Thompson expects to add original adaptations of classic titles as well as new plays based on topics important to middle-schoolers. The new works will be commissioned through his new-play program. One play, to be written and performed entirely in Spanish, will be performed in Latino communities around the state, “because we feel we’ve got to reach out to them in a different way,” he said.
The hope is to establish the performing arts as a priority both in schools and in homes.
“Whether they are a spectator, or if they become involved themselves, the performing arts have so much potential to make them better students, better citizens and to give them a foot up in life,” Thompson said.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Miracle Worker”
Visionary drama. Denver Center Theatre Company, Space Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Through Dec. 20. 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays (also Mondays-Tuesdays through Dec. 2); 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. No show Thursday, Nov. 27. $16-$51. 303-893-4100, 866-464-2626 (800-641-1222 outside Denver), all King Soopers or .
Denver Center education programs
A look at some of the educational programs offered by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts:
Student matinees: Field trips for middle-schoolers, including classroom study guides, a Denver Center Theatre Company performance and a post-show discussion with members of the acting company.
The Denver Center Theatre Academy:
*Age-appropriate performing- arts courses open to all members of the community, including toddlers, teens, families and teachers, conducted by teaching artists from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the National Theatre Conservatory.
*Touring performances designed to introduce elementary- school children to theater.
*The Summer Family Production: An annual staging of the Denver Center Academy’s annual touring production at the Conservatory (formerly Tramway) Theatre. Next summer: “New Kid,” by Dennis Foon, July 7-18, 2009. It’s a gentle comedy that examines bullying, immigration, cultural diversity, tolerance and nonviolent conflict resolution.
*Living History: An interactive performance and workshop series that rotates to different high schools weekly. Students are challenged to make artistic and ethical choices and express their ideas and opinions as historical events and literary themes are linked to current social and political events.
*Distance Learning: an online classroom designed to prepare Denver Public Schools teachers for its own annual Shakespeare festival.
Professional development: Classes in public speaking and building strong communication skills, tailored for the business community. Includes advice on body language, diction, articulation, interviews and dealing with stage fright.
Rush program: High school and college students can purchase $10 “rush” tickets to any available Denver Center Theatre Company performance an hour before showtime.
“Miracle” mentor tales
“The Miracle Worker” is considered one of the great “mentor” stories of all time. Many books, plays and films involve a teacher helping an individual overcome a disability or shortcoming. The genre is populated by teachers tackling a wide variety of social malaise. A few examples:
“Pygmalian,” 1913, by George Bernard Shaw. Phonetics professor teaches flower girl how to act and speak like a lady.
“The Corn Is Green,” 1945, by Emlyn Williams. A teacher converts her own home into a classroom and helps a bully realize his promise.
“Up the Down Staircase,” 1967, by Bel Kaufman. Rookie female teacher at a troubled inner-city New York high school.
“Educating Rita,” 1980, by Willy Russell. “Pygmalion”-style drama about a hairdresser’s literary quest.
“Stand and Deliver,” 1988, by Ramon Menendez and Tom Musca. A dedicated teacher inspires his lethargic students to learn calculus to build their self-esteem, and do so well they are accused of cheating.
“A Lesson Before Dying,” 1993, by Ernest J. Gaines. A schoolteacher visits a wrongly convicted death-row inmate to instill in him that he’s a man with dignity.
“Dead Man Walking,” 1993, by Sister Helen Prejean (adapted for stage by Tim Robbins). True story of a nun who offers spiritual guidance for a death-row murderer.
“Dangerous Minds,” 1995, by LouAnne Johnson. True story of female Marine who left her career to become a teacher at a well- off high school attended by bused-in students from a ghetto.
Compiled by John Moore
This week’s video podcast:
Running Lines at … The Guthrie Theater
This week, Denver Post theater critic John Moore tours Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater, which recently reopened as a new $125 million facility housing three theaters operating on an annual budget of $26 million. It is considered by some the crown jewel of American regional theaters. Recorded Nov. 7, 2008. Run time: 9 minutes.
