Theater for Peace is a community service opportunity for high school students interested in theater and community issues to come together to build awareness of the importance of peace in our families and in our community. The program includes a series of after-school theater improvisation workshops followed by performances of original pieces in middle school classrooms.

After-school workshops: 11 sessions, held at Mt. Blue High School

• For students from all high schools, and home-schoolers
• No previous acting experience necessary!
• Theater games & exercises to develop group focus & awareness.
• Improvisation activities to develop the skill of communicating a story through acting.
• Brainstorming and discussion of the topics: What is community? What is peace? What disrupts the peace in your life?
• The group improvises (creates) scenes based on topics they select from the discussions.
• Group refines the scenes. Workshop leader, Jeri Pitcher, records the scenes and writes a script based on the recording.
• Group rehearses the scenes. (Everyone memorizes their lines and refines their acting techniques.)
• Group develops discussion questions that they will ask their audience following each performance.

Performances & discussion sessions: In middle school classrooms (during the school day, in Jay, Livermore Falls, and Farmington) and in community meeting rooms (day times or evenings), the Theater for Peace actors perform their theater pieces and lead the audience in a discussion about the issues raised in the piece.

The theater director-instructor: Jeri Pitcher, who lives in Readfield, Maine, is a stage director and resident playwright at The Theater at Monmouth. As an actor, she has toured throughout the U.S. with many professional theater companies. Jeri is the creator of Found Story Workshops, which has been used by schools and community groups throughout the state to inspire creativity and to physically build original and immediate theater.

Fees: There is no charge to the students to participate in the workshops. The Foothills Arts Center is funding those sessions as a community service. There is a moderate charge for the group to perform for school classes and community groups.

For more information about the workshops or performance-discussion sessions (dates, how to sign up, etc.), please contact director Anne Geller.