How involved are teachers in high school clubs? Drama club specifically, but any insight would be appreciated. Just to give a little backstory, my MC is recruited into the drama club to write a script. The club advisor/teacher is rarely involved and the club is practically run by the student president. Is this okay? Can a high school senior be experienced enough to lead a drama club with minimal assistance from a teacher?
Hmmm, we didn't have a drama club, we had a Thespian Society, so the crew could be involved as well. All of the members of our school productions were part of the society, thought not all of the productions were members as well. Our teacher was involved by various degrees. She didn't set the agenda, but she was an integral part of our extra-institutional activities. Like when the Society went to plays or local conventions or whatnot. If your drama club is putting on a production, expect to have the teachers very very involved. Letting a 16 year old direct a play is a recipe for disaster in so many different ways.
Teachers in my high school's Thespian club were so involved, the students viewed them as parents. I'm pretty sure there were two teachers — one to build the sets, the other to do everything else with the play (direct, write, assist in acting). They did often have assistants, preferably teachers, but another student who is capable and trustworthy could do it too. But there are just certain aspects of a production that requires a teacher. Directing is definitely one of them. I could see a senior being allowed to write the script. But 1) I doubt she'd do it alone, and 2) it would be approved/revised by a teacher. Edited to add: Please make sure the student class president is in the drama club because she wants to be. Clubs don't recruit the student class president just to run their club. The SCP often runs student council. So unless she was already involved in the club before becoming SCP, her presence would seem odd to me.
Our crew was all students, and I know that's the standard for High School productions. It's standard to have an ancillary teacher, someone who doesn't have a teaching degree, and who probably has a tech business outside of their teaching job, to be the TD. Edited to Add: The TD is the technical director. They only answer to the director of the production, and are in charge of sets, lights, sound, effects, and pyro*. *Usually there's a secondary pyrotech director in charge of all the pyro, while there might not be a lighting director, or a sound director.
Thanks for the feedback this is great. The fortunate part is that I’ve never gone in-depth with the MC’s involvement with the drama club. It’s more like, the MC would comment on the president harassing him to shape up the script before submitting it to the club advisor or the MC noting how the president gets on everybody’s case when they screw up during practice. Would that fly? To answer some of the questions you posed, by student president I actually meant the club president. Sorry for the confusion. As for the script, the MC is the main script writer but he relies on help from four friends who are not affiliated with the drama club. On the teacher issue, the reason why I wanted the teacher to have little influence on the drama club is because the MC goes to a school with a small budget and where some teachers really don’t care for their jobs. The drama club teacher was supposed to be one of those teachers but I don't mind changing it. I have a few more questions if you don’t mind and if you can remember. 1. Do you remember what type of hours you put in for club practices? Were there times when those hours were extended? 2. What are the typical functions of the club president? 3. Was there ever a time that the students of the club decided to do something on their own to promote their play to the community? 4. Is there a major difference between the drama club and the Thespian Society? Besides the prestige?
1. I probably would put in 6-8 hours every Saturday for the first couple of weeks. Then 4-8 hours on Thursday-Sunday as we got closer to call. In in the last 2-3 weeks I was probably putting 4-6 hours every day after class and 8-12 on weekends. 2. I have no idea what her function was, other then to preside over club meetings. 3. That was a bunch of promotional stuff that I was way too busy building sets to take any notice of. Traditionally the cast handles promotions, I have no experience with that. 4. The difference between a drama club and a Thespian Society, is that there is a unified group of societies across district-state-country lines. It was totally possible to letter in the Thespian Society. I think the biggest difference though is that drama clubs don't usually involve the crew, so that's a big thing.
I don't think there is a set rule here. Some teachers are involved, some aren't, some students are perfectly capable of running a drama club. I think if the club puts on formal plays the school administration (meaning the teacher) would be much more involved than if the club members put on plays in other settings.
It's up to the teacher, school, state, etc. In my school specifically, the teacher HAS to be at the club but he can run it however the hell he wants. I'm in an ROTC unit, an anti-bullying club and our Gay-Straight Alliance club, and they greatly vary. ROTC is hands off, anti-bullying the counselor likes to drop it and help us along, GSA is practically run by the counselor by himself.
My friends had a Native American club because they got a room to hang out in. Teachers were never there.
Yeah precisely. It's all very different depending where you are. You can probably safely write it however you want and the states will be so varied in education systems that you'll get away with it while still feeling realistic.
Normally I would agree with you, but this isn't a normal club. The whole point of being in drama club is to put on a production of something. So there's a lot that needs to go in to that, and the students just aren't going to know everything that they need to do. Even with a student director they'll need some serious supervision.
I didn't mean a teacher to build the sets.. I meant a teacher to guide the students in building the sets. lol Woops! The crew at my school was all students, too. They just had a teacher who was knowledgeable about set building, so he was their supervisor. The students definitely built the sets though. Misspoke.
