Disappearance.com -- beginnings

Over the past 18 months I've been involved in the writing and production of a musical by the kids at Wonthaggi Primary School.

Referred to locally as "Bilson Street" because it's the oldest of five primary schools in the town, this is the school where my sister Marg and I spent two happy years in the mid-1950s, where three of my own children started school, and where my wife taught art, craft and drama for almost a decade.

Lynne had produced a series of annual musicals, most of which I'd written, during the 1970s and 80s. But, after we moved to Melbourne at the start of 1987, that tradition ceased, and the culture that had developed around it in the school community died out.

When I moved back to Wonthaggi after Lynne and I separated in late 2002, I decided it would be good to have a project to occupy my spare time (!), so I approached the school principal with a proposal for a new musical production in march of 2003.

He was cautiously keen (optimistically suspicious might be a better way to put it). Over the remainder of 2003 he enlisted the support of the School Council and most of the staff, a number of whom had been young teachers at the school when Lynne was teaching there.

So, at the beginning of 2004, it was decided to create a new musical for the entire school, to be written by the children (including the music) and produced and directed by Marg and yours truly.

We organised a 3-day writers' camp at nearby Inverloch and, with the help of senior teachers, chose 12 kids from grades 5 and 6 to participate, based on their applications. You can read about the Writers' Camp here:

http://www.childrenstheatrevictoria.com/schools/disappearance/writerscamp1.html

(The photos section is restricted by the school's Internet policy to protect the kids.)

You can learn more about the project in general here:

http://www.childrenstheatrevictoria.com/schools/disappearance/

In a nutshell, the group created the plot in less than an hour, then formed four groups of 3 writers to take a main scene each. They completed the script by that evening, then wrote the six songs the next day. The first reading took place on the second evening at the camp, and we knew we had something special on our hands... a very talented bunch of youngsters, indeed!

Then followed months of rehearsing and planning, preparation and delegation. We wanted to create a duplicable system for this kind of event that could be packaged and used by any school, anywhere, to create and present a really enjoyable musical production that would raise self-esteem, boost co-operation and interaction across the entire school community, and give children a chance to demonstrate their talents and skills in performing and visual arts in a truly spectacular fashion.

In the next blog, I'll tell you what happened in the immediate lead-up to the show.