Jenna Hill
TETA K-12 Committee
Middle School At-Large
I will start with: I am one of the lucky ones. I am a middle school theatre teacher. Many arts programs don’t always have room for us at this level, but my district truly loves the arts. It’s no wonder they support the arts, because my community loves it too. In fact, my program has grown and grown. What a blessing, right? It is amazing to see so many kids want to be involved in theatre. Of course, more kids means more shows. More shows means more money. Unfortunately that is not the way funding works. No money tree grew in my yard, so I had to take matters into my own hands. One of my annual fundraisers is a holiday show that allows all ages to participate.
One of the things I love most about TETA is the exchange of ideas. It was at Summerfest where a friend of mine told me about a fun melodrama. I will admit I love a good old fashioned melodrama. The booing and hissing are so much fun. An added bonus was the simplicity of costumes and sets. As I read through the plays, I saw a few holiday shows. That’s when it hit me! We were going to do a Christmas melodrama. Christmas is a great time to share theatre with my entire community.
My students and I were excited. We found a show that really appealed to middle schoolers and our community. As I sent off for the scripts and the royalty, I realized this took a huge chunk out of my budget. The scary thought was I still needed costumes, set material, and 3 more shows that year. Yikes! What was I going to do? I knew I was going to have to get creative.
My advanced theatre students and drama club kids put our heads together. How could we raise enough money to do another show? Selling tickets just wasn’t enough. We needed a fun add on. That was the birth of throwing popcorn. I remembered years ago attending a small melodrama that used popcorn as a snack and another way to express your dislike of the villain. Since my theatre is located in our glamorous cafeteria, I thought what a perfect combination. With help from my PTA, our annual holiday melodrama was born.
I know you already know how to direct a show. I won’t bore you with the details. I wanted to share how we make money. We start at the beginning of rehearsal. We email, make invitations, and perform a small teaser for video announcements as well as for our elementary feeder schools. Our admission is $5.00. We sell water only because I've had a bad experience with sodas and hot chocolate. The popcorn is already bagged and waiting. We sell the bags for $1.00 each. I cannot tell you how many people now come in and buy 10 bags at the top of the show. I chose short shows and include an intermission to sell even more popcorn. This year, I had over 250 people attend. We had to have elves man the brooms during the show. It was snowing popcorn. As we move forward, we are adding more shows. The show has grown so large we can’t accommodate the audience on one night. Plus, you can’t throw as much popcorn. This is a great way to have fun, get your audience involved, and raise much needed funds.
