The Washington Open Parent Faculty Group Drama Program offers all children and adults at our school an opportunity to experience live theater via acting, volunteering and as audience members!
Our age appropriate programs allow children to participate at a level where they will feel successful and doing a little more each year as they mature and are able to take on more responsibilities.
The Drama Program would never be the success it is, without the support from all the parents, staff, and alumni who volunteer their time put on the shows year after year. Not only are we fostering a love for the theater in our children and families, but we are strengthening our school community!
This quote from our directors sums up why we feel drama is so important for the Washington Open community.
The reason why we love theater so much isn’t merely because it’s creative and fun. We get the honor of watching your children grow, gain confidence, and bring the story of the play to life. Sharing stories through performance connects all of us in some way. That’s what makes theater so magical!Amy Zsadanyi-Yale & Celia Scheuerman
This Year's Performance is:
"Alice in Wonderland"!
Besides enriching their lives, theater promotes many skills that are important to academic growth. Theater can improve self-confidence, build self-esteem, and improve verbal, social and communication skills. These are all vital and relevant skills needed to be successful in the world. Drama improves reading comprehension, math skills and academic performance in children and youth with learning challenges. Most importantly, it teaches your child how to work in a group, learn compassion, and problem solve.
During the last weekend of January and the first weekend of February, the Washington Open Elementary School Drama Program is working with two children’s casts and one adult cast to perform “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” at Santa Clara High School’s theater. In this “tale as old as time,” a cruel Prince transforms into a Beast and on his road to redemption, he falls in love with Belle, the beautiful village bibliophile.
At Washington Open, a parent-participation school, parents who put their children in the school drama program must volunteer a minimum of 20 hours to support the production. Parent volunteer jobs include set building, sourcing and making props, designing costumes, supervising rehearsals, overseeing box office ticket sales, working at the concession stand, selling flowers, ushering, designing the program, designing the show T-shirt, photographing rehearsals, and supervising the green room.
For parents like Kristin Jantzen, the volunteer backstage lead, finding community is one of the rewards for volunteering these 20-plus hours.
“I connect with the kids and other adults, and it makes for a really safe and fun space for all of us to be together,” Jantzen said. “During the last two weeks of the drama season, I basically am offstage and am helping to organize the volunteers, who move the set pieces and move the props. We cue the kids to enter the stage. We cue the music and sound during shows. We have a script with cues on when to move the set pieces and where to put them.
“My job as a lead is to have a script at rehearsals and to write down the lines and what happens when that line is said,” Jantzen continued discussing her work to help cue cast members and work through urgent situations. “Sometimes there are problems with getting a costume done before a show and we’re backstage zipping it or altering it, or we are hot glue gunning a prop to fix it.”
Jantzen added that some of this year’s backstage crew for Beauty and the Beast Jr. also include high school volunteers, who are former Washington Open students with fond memories of the drama program, and alumni parents.
For parent Carrie Scott, the volunteer co-producer who, like Jantzen, has put in more than 20 hours of volunteering, the relationships she has formed with other school community members make her work worthwhile.
“You’re not just there working for your child, but for all the children in the program,” Scott said. “Wendy Guttman, the other co-producer, and I work together to put the program together so that we are the front people for the director, the choreographer and the musical director. We bring the kids and the families together and support them through registration, auditions, the run of the show, as well as the coordination of the parent volunteering. A lot of what I do is people management.
“For decades, the two main gentlemen I have been working with on set design are alumni parents Dave Kusa and Lee Erickson,” Scott continued. “Since the beginning of the school’s drama program in 2000, these two have been volunteering with set building and backstage support.”
2024 Willy Wonka
2023 Beauty & The Beast
2020 Seussical
2019 Mary Poppins
2018 Delicious Secret
2017 Little Mermaid
2016 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
2015 Annie
2014 Peter Pan
2013 Seussical
2012 Pinocchio
2011 Beauty & The Beast
2010 Willy Wonka
2009 Wizard of Oz
2008 Seussical
2007 The Tooth Fairy’s Daughter
2006 Dr. Dolittle
2005 Peter Pan
2004 Snow White and the Seven Little People
2003 Wizard of Oz
2002 Cinderella
2001 Guys and Dolls
2000 Annie
