In almost every cheesy high school drama, the school’s musical is always a major event in the lives of the student body, but at the iSchool it seems as if nobody cares about this particular part of our school. Rest assured, there is a Drama Club that puts on a production every year, so why is no one talking about it?  

There is definitely a lack of school spirit surrounding the annual drama club performance, but it goes deeper than that. Not only is the drama club performance not given very much attention by our school, but there are also very few theater classes available to the student body in comparison to art and music courses.

The iSchool offers the following art and music courses:

• Introduction to Drawing
• Advanced Drawing
• Introduction to Painting
• Advanced Painting
• Sculpture
• Printmaking
• Painting NYC
• Drawing club
• Guitar 1 and 2
• Piano 1 and 2

In addition to these courses, there are many modules that have been offered that give students the opportunity to be creative through art and music like Bash the Trash, Inside the Music, History and Photography, and Children’s Book Making. Clearly, there is no shortage of opportunities for young artists and musicians at the iSchool, but what about the actors?

The iSchool does not offer the same amount of theater courses as they do art or music courses, however, the school does offer theater modules so that students can learn about the theatrical arts.

For example, in Poetry and Performance, students write their own original poems and perform them in front of friends and family. Another example earlier in the year the school offered a module called Theater Production where a handful of students were able to learn about what it took to put on a theater production and they even got to perform “A Raisin In The Sun” . Since upperclassmen are able to choose their courses first the younger iSchool students are often unable to participate in these modules.

Jay Gottesman is a freshman at the iSchool and a member of the theater club. They said, “The theater production module that I was super interested in I looked at every quarter this year and it is always filled because the seniors take it ”…“These classes just aren’t available to students that really want to do them they get filled up by those students that need the credits rather than actually wanting to do them.”

Gottesman also talked about a possible solution to give the younger students at the iSchool a chance to get involved in theater “To make things fair we should have more theater not like theater modules but like theater electives.” This is an interesting point because more theater electives would allow the younger students to get involved in theater, and it would offer another way for students to gain art credits if they are not interested in art or music.

The iSchool Theater Club performs a production every year this year they are performing Hamlet, this is a great opportunity for many students who could not get into the theater modules to pursue an interest in theater, however, not many students are aware of the theater clubs existence or take an interest in the annual performance this seems unfair considering how much time and effort the students and teachers put into the production.

There is not much mention of theater on the iSchool website besides a brief mention of the theater club on the “student life” section of the site, it seems that the school does not deem the theatrical arts important enough to be included on the “The arts” page on the site.

The Theater Club is run by English teacher and theater enthusiast Katherine Coughlin. She describes how she became involved in theater at the iSchool: “When I became a teacher and we needed a theater class, Mr. Jones was the first one who put on a play, and I was his student teacher back then,and we did a Midsummer Night’s Dream and that’s how it started.”

Coughlin then went on to describe how popular the class was but that how only a handful of younger students were able to take it because it always got filled up by upperclassmen. “After a couple years the theater club emerged because there was interest …. a real interest in theater and so the students who weren’t in the class wanted a place where they could have a community at school” She also said when referring to the theater club “it was important and necessary and it was something we didn’t have.”

Coughlin agrees that the school is lacking in theater classes. “I think there are a lack of theater courses at the iSchool, and I think there are actually a lot of classes that stumble into theatrical elements that maybe they don’t realize, and there are classes that currently exist that could easily be developed a little bit into performative based courses.”

Emma Jacobs, an iSchool student and theater enthusiast, had a lot to say on the topic. Emma has been interested in theater since the 7th grade and was disappointed when they came to the iSchool and found there were not as many opportunities available for young actors and actresses as they might have hoped .

Jacobs remarked, “There’s a lack of clubs and classes and just like general opportunities for you to like direct or act or do whatever it is your interested in, in terms of theater.”

Jacobs also commented on the amount of arts opportunities versus the amount of sports opportunities in the school. “I think it is unfair because why should people who do other things get more opportunities. There’s so many sports teams but there isn’t anything for actors to do.”

According to an online survey, 65.2 percent of students believe there is a lack of theater courses at the iSchool, many responses point to a lack of funding, teachers, and performance space but regardless the student body definitely has an interest in theater and it’s about time the schools curriculum caught up.