FEATURES: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

COMEDY AND COMMUNITY

Chris Pesko,
Community High School,
401 N. Division, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, U.S.A.


Edited by Sallie Goetsch

Community High, the alternative school, is where the most intelligent and creative of Ann Arbor's teenagers complete their secondary education. For some years CHS has offered a program called 'Community Resources' which allows students to get credit for University classes and independent study projects.

This year the Residential College at the University of Michigan invited Latin students from Community to participate in Easy Virtue: A Reconstruction of Plautus' Cistellaria. Three chose to do so. Of them, two are acting and the third is taking on music and publicity. Here is his perspective on the RC production workshop in Roman Comedy, which will culminate in four performances March 18-20. (See LISTINGS section for details.)

I think that it is great to be a part of a University Production. I have learned a lot of ancient Roman culture and I am going to have the opportunity to do a lot of great stuff involved with the final performance. I am working with music and advertisement (publicity). I am also going to do the programs for the final production and possibly the tickets for admission. I have enjoyed this class a lot and I think that this is partly because the class is very flexible. For example, you can do anything that you want to for the final project providing that it is directly related to the final production. I was able to choose the things that I enjoy most, such as working on the computer and composing the music. It has also been interesting to work in the RC building because for a lot of people in the class, it is a home as well as a classroom and many students treat it as a similar environment to Community High School. I am definitely going to take more classes at U of M next semester because I think that at U of M, students can get more done and learn a little faster than at Community. I think that the Easy Virtue class will be a success because there is quite a bit of student participation and people have the right frame of mind and are willing to put hours of work into the final production. I like having so much freedom with our CR program at Community because I can do the amount of work that I want to and get the amount of credit that I want, (providing that I put the correct number of hours into it). Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this class.

Chris Pesko,
Community High School,

Chris Pesko is a first-year Latin student.

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