ACHS staff member Wanda Teddy puts on the school musicals and is the teacher for many theatre classes. Teddy was inspired by her high school theatre teacher to do the work that she does now; her passion for the performing arts has allowed her to teach the craft for 26 years.
Teddy allows the theatre students to practice a multitude of skills, ranging from broad research to specific theatrical techniques.
“Depending on the class, they do scene work, monologues, script writing and musical theatre research, to name a few,” Teddy said.
The class works on learning how to express themselves through the arts, and how creativity can allow them to grow.
“This class is the culmination of our second, third and fourth level of the theater,” Teddy said. “We get into acting techniques; it’s more advanced and fine-tuning our skills as an artist.”
Mason Lobodzinski is a sophomore at ACHS who has been in theatre class since freshman year, and is experienced in acting. Lobodzinski encourages students at ACHS to join theatre classes.
“I love that we can work together and work on projects together,” Lobodzinski said.
The class gets to collaborate on many assignments, and are able to build creatively off one another. They learn to get comfortable around each other and really show their talents.
“We form a very tight community, where we celebrate life and lifes moments together,” Teddy said. “When one is sad, the rest tend to make sure they are ok. I challenge kids to embrace life and to embrace their mistakes; we become better artists by embracing our mistakes.”
The theatre department is hoping to have more people join classes in the coming years, and are hoping to help students get out of their comfort zone.
