Teachers say holiday stage event great for teens, 3rd-graders

A little girl’s letter to a Riverside High School drama teacher spawned an annual tradition that’s been delighting students, teachers and parents for eight years.

The letter read, “Dear Mrs. Skoog, I am Tonya Ballman and I am eight-years-old. I am very interested in acting and I would like it if you and the bigger kids would teach smaller kids to act.”

Ballman had seen her brother, Harvey, perform in “The Taming of the Shrew” at Riverside High School, and was bitten by the drama bug. She decorated her letter to Skoog with a picture of a small audience watching actors on a stage.

Skoog called Ballman’s teacher, Molly Shuler, and collaboration between Shuler’s third-grade class and Skoog’s high school students was born.

The teachers divided their students into four groups. Skoog chose three drama students to be directors along with her. She assigned the main speaking parts to the younger children and interspersed high school students. Their efforts that year resulted in a show called “Four Fairy Tales.” The elementary kids were thrilled to perform on the high school stage.

“I was Cinderella,” recalled Ballman. “That was really cool for me!”

This year, Ballman, now 16, and president of the Drama Club, served as a director. “My kids are so great,” she said. “They had their lines memorized in a few days!”

Skoog changed the production last year to “An Afternoon of Christmas Tales,” and the holiday-themed show proved to be a big hit with students and their families.

“I write the stories around the students,” Skoog said. “I give the kids a lot of ownership.”

Her own students look forward to working with the younger kids. She said, “By the time we get to the show and it’s over – they cry. They love the fact that they’re role models and these kids are looking up to them.”

Shuler said the change in her third-grade students is amazing. “I just watch them evolve. Their confidence grows.”

On Dec. 2, that confidence was mixed with a bit of nerves as the two classes prepared for their production.

“Getting to know your lines was hard,” admitted 8-year-old Miriam Turney. She played Sister Bear in a skit titled “Bipper and the Reindeer.”

Bipper, a bear that doesn’t want to hibernate, ends up helping Santa’s reindeer deliver Christmas presents.

Nine-year-old Gavin Hanson played the role of Boy in “Santa Gets Stuck,” but it seemed he’d rather have been a reindeer. “The reindeer called Michael got all the funny lines,” he confided.

Michael is actually the name of the high school student who played Dasher. Still, Gavin was determined to do his best. He said he’d learned to “speak loud and not get nervous.”

Some parts didn’t require any speaking at all, which the shyer students appreciated. For example, Brian, the silent elf, marched up to the stage and announced each skit by displaying a sign with the skit’s title.

The crowd, composed of proud family members and excited Riverside Elementary students, proved to be appreciative. They clapped and cheered after each performance.

As Makayla Welch, 14, prepared to narrate “The Christmas Angels,” she said, “I love how our whole drama group becomes a family.”

Sixteen-year-old Brenna Fitzgerald agreed. “I love working with the little kids – they’re really adorable and so smart.”

Skoog said, “This is a way for my students to give back.”

Shuler is pleased that her class gets to be the recipients of the older kids’ time and attention. The opportunity to work with the teens provides her students not only positive role models, but a chance to shine.

She recalled one little girl in particular. “She was so shy, she would hardly talk at all. But she was cast as a fairy princess, and by the performance, she was dancing across the stage.”

Shuler explained, “Some kids are born for the limelight, but others don’t know they may like it, until they’re given a chance.”