Jessica Volpi is a Blair drama teacher who used her PEF Field Trip Grant to take her Blair High School students to Disneyland for a unique learning opportunity. Volpi’s students went to the theme park to participate in a workshop hosted by Disney called The Disney Imagination Campus – Broadway Magic.
The Broadway Magic workshop helps support theater curriculum in classrooms by giving students hands-on, professional-level musical theater performance training with industry workshop teachers. The students were coached in a variety of theatrical skills including character voice, character movement, character development, and ensemble collaboration. The Broadway Magic workshop included learning about set building skills for students who want to focus on the logistical side of theater. The set based curriculum included set design, set modeling, and masking out sets for performances. To utilize the unique location of Disneyland, lessons on how to perform theater in non-traditional theater spaces were integrated into the curriculum of the day, for example studying Disney street performances.
“Throughout the day, students also observed specific live performances, analyzing how professional artists use music, movement, and storytelling to engage audiences. It was an unforgettable experience filled with meaningful learning, creative exploration, and joyful memories.”
-Jessica Volpi, Blair
The training the students received at Disneyland will become a valuable resource for the theater community at Blair. The students who attended the workshop will be leading peer to peer student workshops at Blair to teach others what they learned in the workshop. This knowledge will be integrated into new techniques for Blair’s students, aligning the program with state and national theatre standards for creating, performing, responding, and connecting.
Volpi and her students are looking forward to their future performances that will reflect these new techniques.
