Myth taught through theater at Goshen Jr. High

Feb. 6—GOSHEN — Greek myths will take the stage at Goshen Jr. High School on Friday night.

Students of the Beginning Theater class will present "Ancient Greek Myths" to the community beginning at 7 p.m. It's the first of several performances Goshen seventh and eighth graders can embark on during their time in the school's two theater classes.

"For the beginning kids, the whole first semester is basically laying a foundation of understanding, giving them a little bit of the history of why theater is the way it is in Western culture, and vocabulary — there's so much vocabulary that is theater-specific and unless you've done stage before you don't know anything about it," Goshen Junior High School theater teacher Angela Stoltzfus said.

Ancient Greek theater represents the foundational elements of theater, and so that's where the class begins after the first semester.

"Most of what we teach in Western theater is rooted in Greece," Stoltzfus said.

Together, the beginning theater class, made up of both seventh and eighth graders, choose a Greek myth and work to bring it to life on the stage.

After reviewing the options, Stoltzfus' four beginning theater classes each chose a different myth to perform. They are "The Trojan Horse," "Running for Your Life" (Atlanta and the Great Race), "The Kidnapping" (the story of the Four Seasons), and "The Mother of all Spiders" (the story of Arachne).

"Nobody in my classes does a one-person show, so they have to have some level of comfort with each other, some level of trust with each other to have each other's backs, because my goal is I could be out sick and the show will go on," Stoltzfus said.

After the Greek mythology show, they begin to learn about characterization and plot. Using that information, they perform a fairy tale show. That will be later in the spring.

"We write our own versions," Stoltzfus said, adding that myths and fairy tales are copyright and royalty-free, making it a lot easier for schools to be able to perform them. It does, however, present a problem in that students have to write the script and format it. But both of those things are in the state standards anyway.

"I give them different versions of the myth, we watch videos of different versions of the myth, and then they write their own versions," Stoltzfus said. "The class works together to do that just like they work together to do everything."

Analiah Corbin plays Helen of Troy in the first myth. It's her first show. Classes will perform two shows each to allow kids a variety of experiences. For the second performance of The Trojan Horse, Corbin instead works in the sound and light booth.

"It's been a really fun experience, just learning how to set, and lighting, and stage, and just learning all the blocking and everything," Corbin said.

Corbin and her dad also built the Trojan horse that will be used in the program, and then at the school, classmates helped finish constructing it.

She hopes to continue into advanced theater next class.

"If you put yourself out there, you'll get noticed more, and you don't really want to blend in with the crowd," she said.

The performance of "Ancient Greek Mythology" begins at 7 p.m. this Friday at Goshen Jr. High School. Tickets are $3 per seat for general admission and are available at the door.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.