"They Can Just Be Themselves and That's Okay": ORU Theatre Students Take Powerful Story to Tulsa-Area Schools
For the past seven years, ORU’s theatre season has included a children’s production,
with area schools invited to campus for matinee performances, but this year ORU spent
a week taking the production directly to nearly two dozen schools in the Tulsa area
instead.
“Taking the show on ‘tour’ allows our theatre students a new performance experience and puts them in a hands-on learning environment with the elementary students,” said Courtney Sanders, ORU’s Theatre Director. “The tour also relieves the pressure on schools to organize field trips and secure buses to bring the students to ORU. In fact, many schools have been unable to attend past productions because of very limited budgets. Through this project, ORU theatre students gain a new experience and area school districts save money.”
The ORU theatre students are performing a short, original adaptation of the story of "The Ugly Duckling," utilizing minimalistic costuming and staging, as well as a small cast playing multiple roles in order to bring to life the well-known story of self-acceptance in the face of negativity.
“It’s good for the students to see the arts," said Sara Wimmer, a first grade teacher at Vandever Elementary School in Broken Arrow, OK. "We don’t get to see a lot of… performances like this, so it’s good for them to be exposed to the arts and theater. And then it’s a great story for [the kids] to know they can just be themselves and that’s okay.”
“It’s really cool seeing them come up to us after the show," said Jackson Land, one of the performers. "[They let us know] that we inspire them in some sort of way, that they aren’t an outcast because everybody’s different in their own certain way and they can embrace that difference.”
For the schools, in addition to the ease and convenience that a traveling show brings for them, the theatrical experience itself has been a positive one.
“[The ORU Theatre Group] has been wonderful," said Wimmer. "The kids were fully engaged the whole time, and even as an adult I’ve been engaged, so that says a lot!”