Theatre Performance Finals
May 30, 2018
“The point of a test is to show your depth of understanding of a subject. You can’t show your understanding of theatre without performing.” -Amie Kisling
Many teachers at Lafayette use nontraditional testing methods for finals, from presentation to speeches, but for the theatre students of Lafayette their finals have an even more nontraditional take. Each Theatre class has an outside of school performance for their final. It starts small with single scenes in Theatre 1, moves onto ten-minute plays in Theatre 2, and then a full-fledged production in Theatre 3 & 4.
These finals give students who don’t normally participate in outside-of-school shows a chance to experience performing in front of an audience that doesn’t consist of only their peers. While performing for other members of their class is helpful for feedback, it is a completely new experience performing for an audience who paid to be there. By participating in a performance final, students gain a greater understanding of the performance world.
Performance finals allow theatre students to showcase all they have learned throughout the year. This also gives parents an opportunity to see all the hard work their children have put in.
But the main reason for performance finals is simple according to Ms. Kisling, “Theatre is a performing art, we perform”.
