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Play Weaves Generations

Tribune photo by LENORA LAKE

Deidre Klos, 9 a student at Philip Shore Elementary School, listens while Millie McCullers, a University Village resident, reads a scene from a play the students and senior citizens are writing together. The students recently worked on the production at the University Village retirement center.

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By LENORA LAKE

llake@tampatrib.com

Published: March 18, 2009

UNIVERSITY AREA - A group of Philip Shore Elementary Magnet School students are learning about writing and acting. But they also are learning about people and history.

They are seeing a play come alive through working with about 15 University Village residents in Time Tapestries, an outreach program facilitated by the Patel Conservatory at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The project is designed to encourage participants to explore creativity and personal histories through narrative writing.

Together, they will produce and star in an original story, inspired by Oscar Wilde's children's story "The Selfish Giant." The production, to be presented at the retirement center and at the performing arts center, will tell the story of Opal Snow, a writer who has won an Oscar Wilde award.

Each week, the fourth- and the fifth-graders meet with project leader Jean Calandra to develop the script. Calandra also meets with seniors to refine the script and advance the storyline.

The two groups recently worked together on a scene. They spent almost two hours defining the characters' personalities. The students also heard the seniors describe their school days and their classrooms.

Calandra had the seniors read the scripts for a bingo game scene when Snow is an adult. Both groups offered suggestions for clothing, decor and mannerisms of the characters in the two scenes.

"When you are an actor, you have a chance to play all these things you aren't," Calandra said.

Millie McCullers, a University Village resident, read the part of Gert, a short-tempered woman who belittles Snow.

McCullers said she enjoyed the project "even though I am not a writer. But I do like developing the character and she Calandra brings it out in all of us."

Allison Smith, 10, a fourth-grader, will play the leader of a clique of girls in the production.

"It's fun working with the older people. You expect them to be different, but they are not," said Smith, who said she loves acting and drama.

SEE IT LIVE

The play is open to the public free of charge at 7 p.m. May 8 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in downtown Tampa.

Tribune correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 865-4851.

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