We decided that the best way to handle educating our audiences was through the use of humor. We also thought that it would be best to work with the ninth graders since they always seemed to need it the most.

Diana Howell's classes began to write scripts depicting a variety of scenarios which students might experience throughout their years at Merrimack High School. Each script took a humorous look at the behavior of the audience while the play, assembly, pep rally, speech, etc. was happening on stage.

On the day of the Audience Education Program, freshman English classes (along with their teachers) were invited to the theatre. Students from Diana Howell's class were actors and also plants in the audience causing some of the planned behaviors that students and faculty often act out. While the short vignettes took place on the stage, students in the audience yelped when the lights went out, talked loudly with their friends, got up and walked out right during a song, and students posing as faculty corrected papers and chatted with their friends during the performance. After each scenario was finished, I asked the audience several questions and gave the actors onstage a chance to talk about how they felt when the audience was disruptive. We all laughed about some of the behaviors but the points were driven home.

Over the several years that the program was run, Diana and I saw a huge improvement in the behavior of our audiences at Merrimack High School. We have even stopped running the program on a yearly basis. Overall, the audiences are much better at Merrimack High than they were a few years back-- perhaps we had something to do with that.

Ms. McKeon is willing to be a mentor/resource to other educators.
Contact:
Sharon McKeon, Gateway, Gifted and Talented Coordinator
Merrimack High School
38 McElwain Street
Merrimack, NH 03054
(603) 424-6204, x13
shawnzabel@aol.com