ccording to Principal Gary Moriello, “there is a whole lot more to education than the damn Iowa Test of Basic Skills.”
And at the Gladstone School in Chicago, Moriello is making sure students are learning more than how to properly fill in bubble sheets. Gladstone, a fine arts magnet school, is just one of many schools that supplement their learning by participating in a partnership with The Vittum Theater, a community development organization that focuses on exposing children to the arts using theater, artist-in-residence programs, after school workshops and learning supplements.
The Vittum Theater was founded in 1998 in order to reach young audiences in an entertaining and educational way. Focused on inner-city children in grades pre-kindergarten through eighth, the theater uses performance to enhance curriculum by using arts-integration within classrooms to move learning beyond the textbook and into performance. By connecting with schools through learning supplements and hands-on activity, Vittum also provides a forum for community entertainment and involvement through the Northwestern University Settlement House, 1400 W. Augusta Blvd. Most of the children they work with have little experience with the arts so Vittum provides a forum for youth to connect with both the arts and education simultaneously.
“I am a big believer in experience teaching you more than any classroom,” said Roger Ainslie, a Northwestern graduate and actor for Vittum.
Vittum is just one of the many community outreach programs at the Settlement House, which was founded in 1891 under the guidance of NU president Henry Wade Rogers and his wife, Emma Winner Rogers. Many other professors also were involved in the outreach program, according to Valery DeLong, the director of external affairs at the Settlement House. And though it no longer is affiliated with the university, its community outreach goals are still being fulfilled.
That’s where the Vittum Theater fits in. By exposing young children to theater in an educational way, Vittum allows young students to connect to academia with flair and fun.
The theater’s own productions are at the forefront this year. For the first time, Vittum will be eschewing its normal routine of commissioning solely touring productions in order to produce three of its own works adapted from popular children’s books in their recently renovated space.
“We now have taken it upon ourselves to produce a quality of theater we felt we were not seeing in Chicago for young audiences,” said Tom Arvetis, producing artistic director and NU graduate.
Vittum will produce three shows this year as part of its “Page to Stage” series. The first is titled “Sideways Stories from the Wayside School,” and focuses on an interesting school with some very strange happenings. Later productions will include “A Woman Called Truth,” an adaptation of a story about Sojourner Truth, and “A Thousand Cranes,” a story about a young girl who survived the atomic bombings in Hiroshima only to be plagued by radiation sickness.
It is daring to expose children to such tough topics at a young age, but this theater doesn’t merely entertain. Instead each piece is chosen to be both interesting and educational. Accompanied by learning guides to facilitate classroom discussion and question-and-answer sessions after each show, the event serves as the culmination of a unit as opposed to a field trip for the sake of diversion.
Laura Forbes, the education coordinator for the Vittum Theater, thinks non-traditional learning methods such as this allow students to delve into what they are learning and become entranced in a topic.
“One of the things arts-integrated learning does is empower students to want to find out more about themselves,” Forbes said.
And for this reason Arvetis said he often is drawn to stories with age-appropriate protagonists. While many of the theater’s plays include young characters, however, most of the actors who portray them are at least old enough to vote.
“We’ve never had the luxury of hiring child actors — logistically, it’s just not possible for us to do that,” Arvetis said, adding that “the strength of a story can really minimize the effect of having an adult play a child.”
Imagination abounds when actors are asked to play children in front of an audience that knows more about childhood than those on stage. “Portrayals of young people should not be what an adult would see, but rather, they should try to take it from the perspective of young people,” Forbes said.
Ainslie, who plays five distinct characters in “Sideways Stories from the Wayside School,” acknowledges and accepts this challenge. “Kids are so much more honest and unforgiving if you are not honest on stage,” he said. “Adult audiences have been taught to be polite.”
But this isn’t just an ordinary youth audience. One of Vittum’s primary missions is to expose inner-city children to theater for the first time, showing them there is more to learning than addition, Edison and Emerson.
“Sometimes you get children who may not read, or do science or math so well — but maybe they will respond to the fine arts,” Moriello said. “Once they gain some confidence in themselves through the arts, then they might be a little more eager and willing to try difficult things for them.”
As an additional benefit, Moriello’s school also will be participating in the Vittum Theater artist-in-residence program. Each year Vittum chooses two schools to send two artists into for first-hand arts-integration education.
“A lot of traditional learning happens when kids are in their desks and teachers at the front, but what we try to encourage are approaches that are more student-driven,” Forbes said. The two artists at the Gladstone School will attempt to enlighten and amuse, thereby influencing and educating two fourth-grade classes, each with more than 30 students.
Christina Sedlmaier, a flamenco dancer from Germany, will be one of the artists-in-residence at the Gladstone school. Excited about the opportunity to learn more about teaching while teaching the kids about her craft, Sedlmaier thinks art is a “great tool to see how you overcome obstacles and find out how you process information and what stimulates you.” While following the curriculum set by Vittum, Sedlmaier plans on using dance and interpretation to tell stories with her classes, with which she will spend an hour-and-a-half each week for 24 weeks.
Echoing what Moriello said about the educative power of art, Sedlmaier also subscribes to Vittum’s idea that the fine arts are a necessary tool for learning. While reading and math programs may need to be tailored to each student, “with art, you can reach kids on a broader and different level without having to sacrifice on the quality of education that you are giving them,” Sedlmaier said.
Encompassing every aspect of theater, Vittum also offers young students acting and improvisation classes at the settlement house. It continues to invite touring productions to use its space, including a production from the Northwestern University Touring Company, a group that Ainslie was involved with while a student.
Ainslie pointed out that in a more fundamental sense, watching live theater is a great way for students to learn about the craft.
“I feel like what they learn, more than anything, is so much about theater,” Ainslie said, adding that his NU education helped his work at the theater by honing his performance skills.
Conversely, Arvetis said he thinks NU’s non-conservatory program allowed him to study multiple aspects of theater in preparation for his current career.
“Because the theater program is not a conservatory program, it required me to get a broader liberal-arts education and I have had my hands in a number of different roles,” Arvetis said. “My experience at Northwestern opened me up to several opportunities as a career as opposed to one opportunity as an actor.”
And in the same way, Vittum offers both a broad arts-
integration education as well as a specific cultural experience to those unfamiliar with theater. Through arts-integration, Vittum might be just as important as an actual teacher.
“The whole idea of being a teacher is not so much to impart knowledge but to impart the ability to gain knowledge,” Moriello said. 4
Medill freshman Kurt Soller is a PLAY writer. He can be reached at
