Oddfellows students shine at Share Day by Lauren Kelly Contributing Writer While University students celebrated the opportunity to show off to their parents this weekend, young students at Oddfellows Playhouse did the same on Saturday, Nov. 3 at Share Day. This end-of-semester program has been a tradition at Oddfellows, a youth theater center for local children, since the group first moved to its current location on Washington Street seven years ago. Jen Bleier, the Program Manager at Oddfellows, organized this year’s Share Day. Each staff member was involved. The purpose of Share Day is to show the parents of students at Oddfellows what their children have been doing in class, and to spark interest in taking a class, to local kids who are not currently participating in the program. “[Share Day] is also about community building and about [the parents] being part of a bigger Oddfellows family,” said Dic Wheeler, the Artistic Director of Oddfellows On Saturday afternoon, the nine Oddfellows acting classes offered this fall showcased their work by designating a section of their classes for students’ families to observe. Oddfellows teachers were also given the opportunity to sit in on other classes during the day and learn games or projects from their fellow teachers that they may use in their own classes in the future. Seven-year-old Olivia Williams is a member of Megan Prescott and Amy Weinstein’s Masks of Movement class. She and two other girls eagerly demonstrated for their families the gymnastic and acting abilities that they had learned over the semester. Members of the audience participated as they tried to determine which animal or person the girls were silently acting out. Williams’ grandmother, who attended the Masks of Movement open class, had an enthusiastic reaction to the class. “I loved it,” she said. “I didn’t really know what it was going to be beforehand. It was fun.” Twelve-year-old Cara Daniels participated in Share Day for her fifth year on Saturday. This year she was a part of America Today, a class led by Seth Bloom. Each student in Cara’s group created his/her own scenes that were acted out during the class on Share Day. These scenes involved real-life issues that the kids found themselves dealing with on a daily basis. During the feedback section of Seth Bloom’s class, Cara expressed one of her concerns about the creation of the scenes. “I didn’t want to take over someone else’s scene or act it out too mildly,” she admitted during the class. Later, Cara described her experience at Oddfellows as “really cool. I get to meet people and develop my acting each year.” Students in Elizabeth James’ Complete Actor III class showed their audience how they began each class with games and exercises in focusing and teamwork. One of James’ students told visitors that the purpose of the focus exercise is to, “focus on ourselves and what we’re doing instead of focusing on what everyone else thinks.” This is exactly what students did during the remainder of the class as they presented the monologues that they had been learning throughout the semester. Although Elizabeth James introduced the monologues as “not polished,” the young actors stepped into their characters and spoke as though the words had originated from within them. Christie Arnold, a fourteen-year-old member of the class admitted that she had been nervous about presenting her monologue, but that she forgot to be nervous during her monologue. “I feel like I can finally show off what I’ve been working on,” Arnold said. Visitors were encouraged to give feedback about the classes they observe. At the end of each class, visitors were given the opportunity to talk to their children’s teachers and express any concerns or comments they may have about their child or the class they observed. Share Day ended with a mini-production performed by the Complete Actor II class with students ages 9 to 11, taught by Dic Wheeler. The mini-production was a result of a semester of work by Wheeler’s Complete Actor II class, and was open to all who had participated in Share Day. Outside of Share Day, many parents are able to observe the effects of the Oddfellows classes in their children’s lives. Suzanne Giuca, the mother of a seventh grade student, said, “I think it’s great. The kids are so excited and proud about what they’ve done. This is my son’s niche. It’s a positive way for him to express himself and to meet other people.”

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