Drew’s Drama Session, October 2013

It’s about 11:30 in the morning as Drew guides a group of kids through a imaginary swamp in the Learning Kitchen. He gradually picks up his feet off the oriental carpet and deliberately lands them slowly and carefully, as if afraid to ruin the elaborate patterns on the delicate Indian rug. What is amazing is that the kids are shadowing his lead; most of them seem so curiously amused that they can’t help but shriek with excitement. Max, a second grader who entered behaving shy and meek during introduction, now has become equally hyper as Kyle, also a second grader who occupied his sense of imagination by throwing mud at the young thespians from the carpet swamp. It is hard to imagine just an hour earlier, every kid as languid and exhausted.

“Shh… we have to be very quiet! There’s a sniper here! It’s nighttime and there are a lot of branches here in the swamp…” Drew vigilantly whispers to everyone. Conrad, one of the participants in the group, quiets down for a few seconds before he makes gunshot noises and falls down on the swampy ground. This cautious whisper from Drew was intended to calm the kids down, but rather managed to open another gateway to their imagination. Soon the kids are pretending to shoot each other.

“No, no, no… I am not going to allow people getting shot in this class! And no shooting at other people either!” Andrew says, and I can’t help but giggle.

Drew’s Drama Session is all about thinking about the small things in life and expressing them through movement and language. In one of the many exercises, Drew gets the children to think back on times when they were tired and hungry and act out these feelings purely through movement. As for language, Drew asks them to express movements such as a “dab” or a “slash” with the tone of their voice. Through these exercises, Drew hopes to have the kids understand that drama and acting is all about movement, language, and stretching one’s imagination as far as possible. A lot of times, the kids look like they are playing, but it is one of Drew’s subtle methods in getting everybody comfortable with expressing themselves. When everyone is up and alive, there is no time to think about being shy and timid!

This is Drew’s first of four drama sessions that are being held every other Sunday from 10:30am to 12:30pm at the Learning Kitchen, and everybody seemed to have enjoyed themselves—especially Drew. Considering how much everyone enjoyed themselves, there might be a possibility that the Red Room will offer more classes for kids from seven to fourteen years. And if anyone is interested, we are more than happy to open classes for fourteen and above!

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