Large bouncy wigs, colorful costumes and patterned set pieces filled the stage at Stuart-Hobson Middle School at 410 E St. NE. Dozens of actors danced and sang in sync while students in the balcony swept spotlights over the stage. The cast and crew were preparing for the school’s spring production of “Hairspray,” the final product of months of auditions, rehearsals and afterschool work.
For many middle school students, drama begins as a chance to sing, act, design sets or try something new with friends. But during a formative period of brain development, theater can teach much more than performance. A 2019 report by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and Ingenuity found that arts learning can help young people develop social-emotional competencies when adults are intentional about structuring the work.
District middle school students in drama programs are learning collaboration, communication, confidence, leadership, time management and the ability to take risks in a supportive space. Middle school drama programs serve as developmental accelerators, simultaneously sharpening cognitive executive function through rehearsal discipline, cultivating interpersonal soft skills through ensemble collaboration and instilling real-world life skills.
KIPP DC Valor Academy
At KIPP DC Valor Academy (5300 Blaine St. NE), drama teacher Andrea Gerald emphasizes teamwork, communication and mutual support. The cast becomes a family through the production process, learning how to be vulnerable in front of peers and support classmates doing the same. Most students arrive with little acting experience, so they move together through auditions, callbacks, rehearsals and opening night. Students from different friend groups who might not otherwise interact have to come together to create a finished performance.
“Working together for a common goal, I think is my main goal,” Gerald said. Students quickly learn that they need one another to make the production work. Gerald builds that expectation in her classroom. A whiteboard lists reminders for the community: give each other applause, try your best and learn how to say yes. “I learned it’s all about connection,” one student said. “How you connect with the other actors and the ensemble.” Theater also gives Valor students practice with time management, balance and independence. Rehearsals often happen at the same time as sports practices, and many students are involved in both. Coaches and Gerald make clear that students have made commitments to both teams.
“If you’re coming to track practice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you have rehearsal Monday through Friday, then you need to be at rehearsal Thursday and Friday,” Gerald said.
Gerald, coaches and teachers help students organize their schedules until they can balance more on their own. By the end of production, Gerald hopes students feel the joy of completing something difficult and new. “[I hope they get] the joy of knowing that they’ve accomplished something that they’ve never done before,” she said. “Even some of the ones that have done it with me before, the joy in knowing I can do this again.”
Capitol Hill Day School
At Capitol Hill Day School (210 South Carolina Ave. SE), drama builds independence, leadership and collaboration by gradually giving students more responsibility. Performing arts begin at the pre-K through eighth-grade private school. By fifth grade, students take two performing arts classes each week and learn theater production from improvisation to set design.
That learning shows up in the fifth-grade devised theater program, where students write, produce and perform their own show, and in the sixth-grade one-act play at Miracle Theatre. Seventh and eighth graders can continue in a musical theater elective with more independence over the production. At the Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H St. NE), sixth graders serve as apprentices to the staff, preparing for the roles they may take the next year.
As students take on more responsibility, they learn how to lead peers and collaborate inside a group. Seventh and eighth graders who serve as choreographers or stage managers have more input in the show and help make decisions. That means practicing how to give and receive feedback, follow directions, know when to step forward and when someone else needs the spotlight.
The CHDS program also connects drama to academics, especially English language arts. Students interpret scripts, study what characters want and think about how choices on stage come from the text. “It’s almost like an English language arts kind of focus. Of interpreting a script and interpreting what you know what a character is doing, thinking, [and] what their motivations are,” said upper-grades head and outplacement coordinator Tom Sellevaag. In seventh and eighth grade, he said, students are encouraged to dig deeper and “get inside their character’s head.”
Because the program builds year by year, students become more confident in their abilities. By the upper grades, Sellevaag said, their performances can become surprisingly convincing. “They can be quite moving,” he said. “You really start to believe [their performance].”
Students gain independence and social-emotional skills while still enjoying the work. The drama teacher, Sellevaag said, has “made it fun and made it relevant and made students feel like they have agency.”
Stuart-Hobson Middle School
At Stuart-Hobson, drama teacher Tori Pergerson has spent the past 10 years building a program around confidence, belonging and student leadership. The public middle school’s program also strengthens the pipeline from elementary feeder schools by helping students find a community soon after they arrive.
Sixth graders begin with acting fundamentals and communication. They audition in front of peers, practice public speaking, learn stage presence and try improvisation. As the sixth grade production develops, older students work with them in small groups, giving feedback and serving as mentors.
Pergerson also uses theater to teach academic context. In “Hairspray,” for example, students had to understand the history behind the story they were acting, including why slurs were used and what they meant in the world of the play. The goal was not only to say lines correctly, but to understand the history and choices behind them.
Pergerson said one of the clearest areas of growth is confidence. Students learn to take risks, try unfamiliar roles and see what they can produce. Because the program runs all year and includes two productions, students have repeated chances to develop their acting skills and confidence on stage.
“We’re pushing you to get up in front of people and talk and act, or do all these things,” Pergerson said. Students begin to feel that, even in sixth grade, they matter and belong, she said. “So that sense of belonging, it’s just growth, and I see it exponentially because they just feel like they have some investment here and they’re a part of something.”
Drama also teaches dedication. Evan Pergerson, a seventh grade actor who is also the drama teacher’s son, said he has learned how to stay committed and work hard.
For many students, the program is an incentive to get to school for zero period before the regular day starts and to maintain their grades. If they miss zero period, they miss that day’s rehearsal and any changes made to scenes.
Leadership continues during the show itself. Gigi Bruckner-Rust, a seventh grader who played Tracy Turnblad in this spring’s “Hairspray,” said mentoring younger students taught leadership. Students practice giving constructive criticism and serving as role models for sixth graders.
When the performance begins, teacher Pergerson steps back. “I sit right out here, I don’t go backstage for anything. I officially hand them their show,” she said. “They know what they’re supposed to do.”
As the final notes played at dress rehearsal, the cast on stage and teachers in the front rows cheered to end the last rehearsal before opening night. Students changed out of wigs and ruffles and gathered for one last meeting before showtime. The cast of “Hairspray” still had a few hours until curtain, but the room was filled with the energy of these students who had worked for months and were ready.
Programs like Stuart-Hobson’s show how middle school theater can teach the life skills adults often hope students will learn somewhere: time management, collaboration, confidence, responsibility, leadership and the courage to try. The students may not describe it that way while they are singing and dancing, but the lessons are built into the process.
Pergerson said her students tease her because she keeps saying she will make T-shirts with all the sayings about the life skills students get from drama. It’s one more reason she keeps doing the work. “A lot of people can’t say they love their job,” Pergerson said. “I love my job. I love it.”
