Pulling in non-athletic students is a great idea. However, it needs to come from other students rather than teachers. The ETC people need to target those who aren't involved and use positive peer pressure to get them to join in. I'm hoping with the large musical Wizard of Oz in the spring we'll be able to generate interest in some middle school students. My only concern is all the roles needed and trying to fill them. It will take work from everyone involved in ETC.

I know. It's a difficult task, but if we put our heads together, I'm sure we can figure out something. Maybe we could try to pull in some of the students who don't participate in athletics. They want to be involved in school like the athletes, but aren't very good at sports. We could talk to them and see what happens. If we could make them, and other students too, see that theatre is like having a second family and how much fun it is, then we might just get more students involved.

Our problem isn't in the shows - we can't do more musicals due to cost and no pit orchestra available. I tried Dracula, but no new students there, and we have to work around the athletic schedule. Many students are so tired after athletic practice, they can't come to rehearsal. Others have games during the week and we can only rehearse in the evenings 3 nights a week. It's frustrating with all the rules we have to follow to try to pull in more students.

I agree that we need more students, badly! Maybe a way to do this is to select popular shows. What I mean is, if we do shows that people have heard of and recognize, then they will be more likely to audition and/or work on crew. Maybe we could do Sound of Music, Putnam County Spelling Bee, Aladdin, or Annie Get Your Gun for musicals. Anne Frank, Romeo and Juliet, or Our Town are some ideas for straight plays. I'm not sure if any of these will work or not, but they are some popular shows. Because they've heard of it, students (and audience members) are more likely to show up and participate (and see it).

So the question is, how do we attract actors and crew people into ETC?  The theatre class has evolved into 2 sections but we need more students interested in being on stage and crew - especially guys!  Give me some ideas on possible shows that would interest guys in auditioning.