Give a High School History Lesson with SHOUT!
Give a High School History Lesson with SHOUT!
By Whitney Urish on September 22, 2011
Students in Kalispell, MT performing SHOUT!
A great way to give a 1960s history lesson that students are sure to remember is with a High School production of SHOUT! Although not every event of the decade is covered on stage, SHOUT! is a great impetus to create a syllabus for the period from 1962 to 1970. Students can gain a greater interest in a history lesson with the knowledge that the culmination of their classroom time will result in seeing it come to life in SHOUT!
SHOUT! covers British ‘60s pop culture from the Beatles to Twiggy, Petula Clark to Mary Quant and Tom Jones to 007. Music and women’s growing independence is front and center. Mix this in with the turbulent political lessons in the classroom, and you’ve got an interested student.
And if you plan on performing the show in a high school, we now offer two alternate monologues/scenes in the script to replace some of the "adult-themed ‘60s material."
And, just because the show is written for 5 women, doesn’t mean you are limited to that size of a company. It’s possible to have a cast change at the point of the costume change (at “Color My World”) and therefore double the size of the cast. And if you really have an eager bunch of singer/dancers, consider adding a chorus of go-go dancers a la Shindig and Hullabaloo to appropriate numbers. The advice columnist Gwendolyn Holmes and The Voice of the Magazine can also be a live actors on stage instead of voice overs.
The possibilities are endless when you start combining the Theatre Department, the History Department and a little imagination.
Cast of SHOUT! in Brooklyn, NY
Young artist from Wasusau, WI in SHOUT!
About Victoria Lang
Add Victoria as your friend on MTI ShowSpace!If you’re having a challenge with SHOUT!, let me help you solve it. I really enjoy interacting with fellow Producers. Feel free to visit my MTI ShowSpace profile or email me at VLProducer@aol.com.
Victoria Lang is the Founder of the Lang Entertainment Group (LEG) – an award-winning independent development and production company focusing on theatre, film and interactive media. In the fall of 2004, LEG opened the first New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) with SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL, which went on to a six month Off-Broadway run in 2006 before launcing a national tour and productions in Chicago, Japan, Korea, London, and throughout the UK.
