As a setting for theater productions, a screening room for film festivals, and a gathering space for assemblies and school events, the theaters at Berkeley High School are extremely valuable. Recently, however, students and staff alike have adapted to life without them. The theaters have been undergoing construction for the past two years. For the performing arts programs at BHS, the closing of the theaters brings struggle, and some unexpected benefits.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 Caitlyn Louchard is a theater teacher at BHS. \u201cI\u2019ve been approaching the closures as an opportunity for us to explore different theatrical forms. The idea that theater needs to happen in a very particular kind of building with a very particular setup is actually a very new idea,\u201d Louchard said. Only recently\u00a0 has there developed an expectation that theater will be performed on a conventional stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, the theater production produced a play called \u201cMetamorphoses,\u201d which is meant to be performed over a body of water. They performed it around a fountain, the audience sitting around three of its sides, and the action taking place in the middle. \u201cThat\u2019s one form that I\u2019m excited to continue exploring. We can explore different sites, and create pieces specifically around a site,\u201d Louchard said.<\/p>\n
This fall, Berkeley High Theater is bringing a touring production of \u201cA Year with Frog and Toad\u201d to Berkeley Unified School District elementary schools. \u201cA lot of our seniors who are in leadership positions in this production grew up watching this particular show at the Bay Area Children\u2019s Theater Company,\u201d Louchard said. This company, like many others, went under during the COVID-19 pandemic. \u201cFor students to pick that (show) up and kind of take the place of the Bay Area Children\u2019s Theater themselves, it\u2019s a pretty magical thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student director of \u201cA Year with Frog and Toad,\u201d BHS senior Lev Goldmiller, has been part of Berkeley High Theater since freshman year. From \u201cMetamorphoses\u201d to \u201cA Year with Frog and Toad,\u201d Goldmiller has a lot of experience with doing shows outside of BHS. Goldmiller has been advocating for \u201cA Year with Frog and Toad\u201d to be a BHS performance for all of his years at the school. This year, in part because of the contributing factor of theater renovations, Louchard finally said yes. \u201cWhen I first heard that the theaters were getting closed, I said, \u2018this is an incredible opportunity for us to take (\u201cA Year with Frog and Toad\u201d) \u2026 to elementary schools and show them not only what Berkeley High Theater is about, but what theater is in general,\u201d Goldmiller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The theater closures don\u2019t just affect the theater programs, but film classes as well. Amanda Marini teaches visual and performing arts at BHS, and usually screens the horror festival in the little theater every year. This year, she will have to screen it elsewhere. \u201cThe thing I really love about doing the horror festival at school is that we can show it to so many people,\u201d Marini said. There are usually three showings of the festival, meaning that 300-400 kids were in the audience per period. \u201cThis year, we\u2019re gonna be doing it at night during the week at the Oxford Theater, so I\u2019m worried less students will come,\u201d Marini said.<\/p>\n
Despite these worries, there are also upsides to the theater closures. \u201cOne benefit of doing the film festival at night is that we can do a slightly longer program,\u201d Marini said. Without being confined by the bell schedule, the program will be closer to an hour and a half, instead of 40 minutes as it has been in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The A Building construction may seem inconvenient at the moment. Hopefully, these renovations will yield new and improved performance spaces that future pupils of the BHS arts programs can enjoy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a setting for theater productions, a screening room for film festivals, and a gathering space for assemblies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-461335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}