MARFA — Marfa Live Arts returns this week to Marfa Junior High to instruct students on how to express their inner voice with the 9th Annual Playwriting Preparatory Program currently in progress. The workshop taught by Marfa Live Arts Lead Instructor Rachel Tate during Jaylia Foster’s English classes guides students through techniques and practices to teach, inspire, and motivate students to create dramatic arts monologues. A selection of these works will be performed at the annual Winter Showcase Theater using local actors in February at Planet Marfa.
When asked why she thinks it’s important for students to learn how to express themselves through developing characters and monologues, Tate replied, “Sometimes being yourself feels hard enough to begin with, even as a grown up. Now, try and remember what it was like to ‘be yourself’ as a middle schooler. It’s not the easiest moment in our lives and for a reason. Their brains and bodies are in a radically changing state… This can feel exhausting and confusing and exhilarating all in the same moment.”
She continued, “I think having a character’s perspective to create and write from helps to navigate all those things without having to take full ownership as just ourselves. It allows for a little more ambiguity. However! I don’t believe in creating these characters to hide behind. We spend the beginning of each day of class writing about ourselves through what we call our ‘I AM’ or ‘Talent List,’” Tate explained, “In these lists we write the things that are true about ourselves and who we are in the world. They can be introspective, or they can be simply factual natures of our being. In these statements we aim to focus on the good and true of who we are and believe ourselves to be. Monologues are thoughts out loud, so we might as well start with the source of our thoughts. I think when we use this as our home base it becomes a more engaging and dynamic environment to create and write perspectives from that are not technically us but are rooted in us. In knowing a little bit more about who we are and what we think and feel, even if that changes in the next minute, we can find some freedom.”
This is Tate’s third year of teaching this workshop. “It’s been neat to see the way their thoughts about themselves, their classmates and the world around them expand as they do,” she said. “They all have a specifically unique perspective growing up in a place like Marfa, and I believe it’s a real blessing to get to be of service to witness and foster that growth in whatever way I can. I’m very grateful to Marfa Live Arts for making this commitment to the community so many years back and allowing me to join in on that commitment. It feels important. It also feels real fun.”
For Foster, the program also gives students a way to escape from the normal routine of school while also allowing them freedom to dive deeper into themselves by giving them more freedom in creativity. “The approach to writing is so different that the students enjoy the change of pace exploring the flexibility of their voices and the pieces’ open-mindset structure,” Foster said. “It’s not the rigidity of writing for a standardized test. I think it provides a very special experience for our students. Not only does it allow them to express themselves in a unique way, but also gives the students a safe place to write, create and share.”
As with all Marfa Live Arts’ MISD enrichment courses, selected student pieces are chosen by a jury and brought to life on stage at the Winter Showcase Theater with performances by local actors at Planet Marfa in February.
Foster shared, “I always enjoy the performances and readings of the students’ material. I think that the students enjoy it too. I’m also always curious about what approach and methodology Marfa Live Arts teachers are using; it provides a learning experience for me too. I appreciate that Marfa Live Arts does this every year for our students. I think it provides a creative outlet and learning experience for the students and myself.” If you are interested in acting or production work, please email: info@marfalivearts.org. For more information on Marfa Live Arts, visit www.marfalivearts.org