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Hello everyone!  Welcome to Speech and Theatre Arts, commonly called "Drama" class around the hallways of Marie Murphy School!  I'm Mrs. Roche, and I'm so glad that you've taken the time to visit my blog.  Whether you are a parent, student, or community member, I look forward to our educational partnership this year, and I'd be very happy to have you visit my blog on a regular basis.  I look forward to getting to know each and every new student, and to being stunned at the maturity and growth of the returning students.  We'll be learning some exciting and challenging concepts in class this year, but we'll be having a ton of fun along the way! Buckle up!  Here we go!!!

The 2011 MMS Spring Play will be..."There's A Ghost in My Locker," by Christopher Barruto.  It's a fun little comedy about how three wishes can turn a bad situtation...worse!

All MMS students are invited to audition.  There is a significant time commitment after school to the rehearsal schedule.  Rehearsal schedule and audition information, along with the permission form that must be signed and returned to Mrs. Roche before auditioning, can all be found on the Spring Play website.  Click on the link on the right-hand side of this page to get you there!

Looking forward to a new play season!

Oscar Nominees were announced last week!  Each Spring, I hold a contest in each class period to see which student can pick the most number of eventual Oscar winners.  Students--start doing your research!

A list of the Oscar nominees can be found here at the Oscar website:  Oscar Nominees

The 7th grade drama students celebrated the close of a challenging film study unit with a film festival in which all movies made as a final project were viewed.  The movies were enjoyable, high quality, and demonstrated advanced film techniques.  Students were encouraged to take part in voting for  winners in four categories:  1)  Best Actor;  2) Best Actress; 3) Fan Favorite; and 4) Overall Best Picture.  It was a very close race in some categories, but here are the winners:

Best Actress:  Ariana C. (playing "Detective," from The Kidnapping)

The Kidnapping

Best Actor:  David Y. (playing "Master Shangii," from Karate Kids)

Film that was the "Fan Favorite": Karate Kids (by Arham, Adam, and David)

Karate Kids

Overall Best Picture: A VERY CLOSE RACE!!!

3rd place:  Karate Kids (9 votes) by Arham, Adam, and David

2nd place:  College Caper (10 votes) by Kevin, Aiyappa, Peter, and James

And the Winner Is.....

The Chase (with 11 votes!) by Tom, Ethan, and Matt

The Chase

All films can be viewed on individual student blogs.  Well done, everybody!!!  Happy Holidays!

In 8th grade, we are finishing our Shakespeare unit.  We have learned about Shakespeare's life, his language, his theatre, and studied his sonnets and the play, Much Ado About Nothing.  As part of our unit, the students memorized and prepared one of Shakespeare's sonnets for an oral interpretation performance.  Here are some examples of some of the best performances:

Solena:

Solenasonnetweb

Sam:

Samsonnetweb

Sahar:

Saharsonnetweb

We've been talking about verbal and nonverbal speaking skills all last week in class, and then, over the weekend, I was alerted to a real-life public speaker who gave us a lot to talk about in class.

Check it out:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/politician-phil-davison-freaks-out-during-speech-11600742

Hi there!  Welcome to Speech and Theatre Arts, commonly called "Drama class" around the hallways of Marie Murphy School!  I'm Mrs. Roche, and I'm so glad that you've taken the time to visit our blog.  Whether you will see me in class first or second semester, you can be assured that I'm very happy to have you, and I look forward to getting to know each and every student.  We'll be learning some exciting and challenging concepts in class, but we'll be having a ton of fun along the way!  Buckle up!  Here we go!!!

The 8th graders officially graduated last night.  Congrats!  We wrapped things up last week in drama class with some of the best dramatic performances to date.  Not only that, but many students who struggled in the past with shyness, gave triumphant performances of personal power.  Well done, everyone.  Here's one excellent example:

"Rehearsal," authored by Mary Krell-Oishi;  performed by Zoy, Elizabeth, and Kristina

The Rehearsal web

It's been a great semester in 6th grade!  We have wrapped things up for the year with some fun comedy sketches.  We talked about what makes things funny and worked on implementing that into scripted scene work in larger groups.  Here are the videos of our performances!  Enjoy!  To my 6th graders:  it's been so much fun!  See you next year!

Period 7:  The Young and the Senseless

7 The Young and the Senseless

Period 6:  My Meaningless Life

6 My Meaningless Life

Period 7:  The Trial of Martha

7 Trial of Martha

Period 6:  The Days of Our World

6 Days of our World

Period 7:  My Meaningless Life

7 My Meaningless Life

Period 6:  The Young and The Senseless

6 Young and the Senseless