|
Imagine six big balls on a bare stage. Five actors appear. They press the balls together, tilt the column straight up and plunk a bucket on the top — it’s a dancing ball-man, “the darndest display of applied physics,” says Carol North, Metro Theater Company artistic director, “yet it’s quite magical, too.” The dance of the ball-man is one of many magical moments in “More Stuff,” an original theater piece commissioned by Metro Theater Company and performed in or near U.S. Midwestern Monsanto seed production and research sites with the support of a Monsanto Fund grant. In a series of residencies, the company presented the show to hundreds of young people and their families in Illiopolis, Mason City and Stonington, Illinois; Matthews, Sikeston and New Madrid, Missouri; and Constantine, Michigan — rural locations that professional theater troupes rarely, if ever, stop in.Over the years, Monsanto Fund has supported many projects in partnership with the St. Louis-based Metro Theater Company. Two years ago, the Fund staff asked the company if it could bring original, live theater straight to Monsanto seed-site audiences. “We said, of course! After all, we’ve been a local and national touring theater for three decades,” North says. Planning and producing the seed-site programs are examples of pure collaboration between the Fund staff, Monsanto seed-site management and community representatives. The results are three-to-five-day residencies in each town that include, besides the show itself (typically staged in a school), teacher and classroom workshops, hands-on family programs and all types of theatrical and educational experiences created just for that time and place. For example, in one seed-site town, Metro Theater Company presented a workshop for 60 parents and small children. Else-where, a high school principal asked the group to host brownbag lunches to discuss career options in theater. In another location, the high school drama teacher asked the company to include a special group of dedicated drama students in a variety of activities. “So the two days we were there, we wove into our schedule a continuous relationship with them,” North says. “The kids helped us load in, watched us warm up, accompanied the actors to classrooms to observe workshops, and we presented a special one just for them.” In certain communities, Metro Theater’s production is the first live performance some children have ever seen. “What a rare and wondrous event!” North says. “But the other side of the experience is to turn the equation around, to demystify what was magical and put it in students’ hands, so they can know theater isn’t mysterious, but structured and disciplined creative work they can do themselves.” It’s all about connections, between students and their dreams, actors and audiences, Monsanto Fund and Monsanto’s seed-site communities. “The residencies are not just about doing a show but making connections with people on their turf, in their town,” North says. “And that’s precisely why Monsanto Fund values this project, as a way to connect with their communities, to offer something that can enrich everyone’s life and can last long after we’ve packed up the props and gone home.” |