By Alden Ferro
Staff Writer

Many Wesleyan students have taken the opportunity to work at Oddfellows Playhouse, a non-profit youth theater in Middletown. The playhouse was founded in 1975 by a small group of Wesleyan students who felt the need to give children access to the performing arts in the greater Middletown community.

Today, Oddfellows, on Washington St. near Main, is a thriving performing arts center for children ages six through twenty. Though the function that the playhouse serves has expanded
and evolved since 1975, the basic tenets on which a few Wesleyan students founded Oddfellows remain the same, according to Associate Artistic Director Marcella Trowbridge.

"Our mission is to provide skills, knowledge, and self-confidence, not only in the performing arts, but also in life as well," Trowbridge said.
Wesleyan remains closely tied with Oddfellows. Each fall at the playhouse, a few incoming Wes frosh are introduced to the playhouse’s mission through activities at Oddfellows as part
of orientation.

"Sometimes we spend a weekend doing community things," Trowbridge said.  

"We take Wesleyan kids into the housing projects with clipboards and have them knock on the doors of houses where we know kids live; we recruit new kids very actively."

"Many times students end up getting hooked on what takes place at Oddfellows, and begin to either volunteer at the playhouse or work there as part of a work-study program,"
Trowbridge said.

According to Trowbridge, there are currently about 30 students working at Oddfellows as work-study students, and about an equalnumber as volunteers. Once at Oddfellows, students
can take on a variety of jobs, ranging from office work to major jobs working on some of the productions. Teaching Assistants (TA’s) can lead warm-ups and other exercises in different
classes and, depending on the teacher, can lead

their own warm-ups or coach students in monologues. 

"If the TA is focused and enthusiastic, then the kids will be too," Trowbridge said.

Wes students have also been Stage Managers and Assistant Directors in productions at Oddfellows. This past year, when the playhouse performed
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a Wesleyan senior was assistant director while a frosh was stage manager.

Senior Katie Davis ’01 has worked at Oddfellows each of her four years at Wesleyan. During her freshman orientation, she was assigned to do various jobs at the playhouse, such as
cleaning out the costume shop and doing minor building maintenance. 

"I wanted to work there as soon as I heard about them and what they do," Davis said. "I was involved in theater a lot when I was younger and I remember how much fun it was. I know
what they do affects kids’ lives in really important ways. When I found out that they needed work-study students, I applied."

Though she originally applied to be a TA in order to work directly with children, she ended up working in the office, where more help was needed. 

"I started out doing a lot of various office tasks; putting out mailings, doing data entry," she said. "I still do some odd jobs, but now I do mostly the financial stuff; I manage the tuition
files and process all the grants and donations.  They actually named my position recently, I think I’m the ‘financial specialist,’ which is pretty amusing to me."

This season, however, Davis is spending a little less time in the office and more time working directly with kids. She is a TA for a class called Paco and the Witch, which works with six to
eight year olds. All in all, she estimates that she works eight or nine
hours in the office, and an hour per week as a TA. Though she had never done any work at a place like Oddfellows before coming to Wes, she had had a lot of exposure to drama and
working with children.  

"I’d done a lot of theater, and I’d had a lot of contact with kids through babysitting and things like that...but I’d never really combined the two before," she said. "It’s a bit of a challenge for me sometimes. I’m not a great disciplinarian and I’m trying to learn how best to deal with kids when they’re acting up or not wanting to cooperate."

"One of the cool side-effects of working there is that I’ve learned a little bit about what it takes to make a place like Oddfellows happen and keep it running. It’s really difficult work [being
a non-profit]; you’re always fundraising and grant-writing, relying heavily on income that’s hardly ever steady from year to year... and that’s just the management part," Davis  added. "Wesleyan has always been a big part of the Oddfellows community," Trowbridge said. 

"And for Wesleyan students it’s a unique experience," Davis said. "I think more Wes students should go see the productions; they’re just as good as, if not often better than, anything that goes up on campus."