7QUESTIONS+PLUS

Holly Stanfield, the director of Bradford High School’s Theater Arts program. Stanfield grew up in Shorewood and was involved in her high school theater program. When she began teaching in Kenosha, her goal was to offer students the same opportunities she had as a high school student. She still calls her high school director for help and advice.

Holly Stanfield will now take your questions ...

In the face of school costs, how do you keep the quality of the productions as high as you do? Is outside fund-raising taking a lot of effort? Do organizations, businesses or alumni help out? We have a budget from the school district for materials and services. We keep our ticket sale profits and we also do fund-raisers. We have very supportive parents of current students and parents of past students who graciously volunteer to continue giving their time to support theatre arts at Bradford in Kenosha.

How are the productions chosen to get the largest number of students involved, challenging material or crowd pleasers? We audition for our season of plays in May. The Bradford Theatre Arts Program is open to any student in the Kenosha community who is grades nine through 12. Every student who auditions is placed in at least one production. After we see the auditions we chose a season of plays that will best develop the talent that we see. We typically see and place 275 to 300 students. Since this is educational theatre our focus is meeting the student's needs.

With the backlash by Christians and Catholics for performing "Jesus Christ Superstar," how do you think people will react to "Rent"? To succeed as a public school teacher, I try to find every child's potential. Often times that means I need to put aside personal beliefs and "see" the gifts that each student brings to my classroom. Sometimes I need to face my personal fears to "see" clearly. Race, intelligence, sexual preference, religious beliefs and socio-economic status should not color my vision.

"RENT: School Edition" will present this same challenge to its audience on a nightly basis. Some of us are afraid of the reality it presents. AIDS, the drug culture, poverty, violence and sexual preference are issues most of us like to keep at an academic distance. We would prefer to disconnect from the conflicts explored by Jonathon Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.

After all, on a nightly basis we have to remove ourselves from the events that stream across our televisions to function as healthy individuals. We're good at it. We are "safe" in our homes looking at images of conflicts for 30 minutes on the nightly news before dinner. Most of us choose to live "apart" in this age of communication.

The character, Mark, begs for "connection in an isolating age " as we end the second act of "RENT: School Edition," and yet he is the one who uses his camera to remove himself from his own reality. Angel becomes a reluctant savior as the play moves forward, because he alone has the courage to see the beauty in the other characters. Angel knows how to "practice peace." It's a phrase that we try to embrace at Bradford. "RENT: School Edition" is premiering in a special school culture. We try at Bradford on a daily basis to practice peace by "seeing" the beauty in the students that grace our halls and our classrooms. "RENT: School Edition" strongly communicates that peace is not the absence of conflict. Mark states at the end of the first act - "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation."

Really, what makes Bradford theater so great? Kids? Teachers? Support from community? The perfect storm combination of all three? We are definitely "the perfect storm" at Bradford. Theatre is perhaps the largest of all art forms. We draw upon the talents and energy of everyone in our community. Students, teachers, local artists, administrators, parents and support from the professional community are all essential to our program. This is the greatest gift this form brings to our community. It brings people from varied backgrounds together to tell important stories.

What is your favorite musical and why? My favorite musical is the show that I am working on. In other words, I fall in love with every project that I am directing. The best part of my job is that it allows me to explore the richness of the human condition. Theatre tells our story and each production challenges me to look at our world from different points of view. The theatrical form is education at it's best.

What do you find most satisfying about directing the Bradford Theater Arts Program? The people that I work with at Bradford are amazing. My colleagues - Robert Allen, Adam Theisen and Jodi Williams are exceptional artists and caring human beings. Our professional choreographers, designers and musicians care deeply about our students and feel that the work at Bradford is an important part of their artistic lives. Our community has an abundance of talented and motivated students who have the family and community support to succeed in the arts. We have the full support of our administration. It's a great place to work.

What advice do you have for kids wanting to get into the theater program? Come and audition for the program. We try to make this process as painless as possible for our students. We audition for our season of plays in May and cast every child who auditions for us. If a student is interested in pursuing theatre as a career, we also recommend that they take private voice lessons and get some dance training.

How do you select which shows to do at Bradford? We audition our students and pick plays that showcase their talent.

What's the biggest challenge in moving Broadway shows to a high school stage? Every show presents a different challenge. Sometimes the show needs to be edited to be appropriate for a high school production. Technically, it is often a challenge to tell the story without all of the bells and whistles that people expect after seeing a Broadway level show. Occasionally we modify keys to make the music more accessible for young voices. Our goal is to tell an interesting story to our audience clearly.

With so many activities, how would you describe students' interest in theater these days? How has it evolved? Is it increasing or are they becoming occupied with other things? There has been a strong arts program in place in the Kenosha public schools for many years. Student interest in the Bradford Theatre Arts Program has been growing for the past 10 years. We are grateful that the community and the administration see the value of an arts education in Kenosha.

What's been your favorite show at Bradford so far? And why? Again, my favorite show is the one that I am producing. I enjoy working in a variety of theatrical forms. Since I have training and experience in vocal music and theatre I usually direct musicals, but when I attend professional theatre I usually see more shows without music.

What's a show you would like to see done on the high school stage that hasn't been tried already? I would love to see "Ragtime" produced at Bradford. I would also like to see more classical theatre in our season.

What show has generated the biggest response/audience in your time at Bradford? "Aida: School Edition" was our biggest event if we are talking about attendance. Many of our shows generate a response from our community. We hope to educate the community as well as our students with the work we are producing.

What can we look forward to in the next season at Bradford? We will not look seriously at our season until we audition our students in May.

What's the bigger factor in the development of a performer, talent or instruction? Passion. To succeed in the arts you need to be passionate about communication. There are many people with talent and training. The artists who work are people who are passionate enough to find a way to bring their work to the stage. Most theatre artists are college-educated. When our students audition for schools in their senior year they are assessed on many levels. Schools will look at grades, test scores, extracurricular activities, performance resumes, private training, recommendations and essays before they see the students audition. To compete for a birth into a theatre program on the college level, our students should be competitive in all of these areas. We have students who have been placed in very competitive programs across the country. Bradford is recognized as a strong theatre arts program nationally.

What's the key to managing Bradford's large productions? It takes a village to raise a theatre program. Staff, administration, parents, students and community members must work together to make this program succeed. We appreciate all of the talent that we work with on a daily basis at Bradford.

Are there any "drama kid" stereotypes out there you'd like to dispel? There is not a typical "drama kid" in our program. That is the beauty of theatre. We need a wide variety of  people to tell our stories honestly. We have students with many different talents and intelligences who are a part of our program. A student characterized his experience in our department as the place where people can talk. It is not unusual to sit in our offices and hear our students debating a variety of subjects. Politics, religion, and history are easily juxtaposed with the latest fashions for prom or the score of the basketball game the night before. Our department is a place where our school culture meets.