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Far Corners Community Musical Theater
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Sometimes All It Takes is One: Young Performers Shine in FCCMT's Children's Program
Juliet Lamb

Seven small girls cluster expectantly at the edge of the stage. Their costumes, in a rainbow of bright hues, match the colors of the glitter-covered numbers clutched to their chests. As the last parents settle into their seats and the room falls silent, the girls take a deep breath and, with an irrepressible surge of energy, explode onto the stage.

Now in its 5th year, the Monteverde Children’s Program turns the spotlight on local students too young to participate in FCCMT’s main production. The program’s goal may be even more daunting than that of a traditional show: to craft and perform an original play in two weeks. Never mind that most of the performers have never seen a play, let alone acted in one. “Since we only had two weeks to put together everything from costumes to set pieces, write our show, and teach them all the fundamentals of theatre, there wasn't a moment to lose,” explains assistant program director Lauren Lopez.

They began by reading several books, but one stood out—One, by Kathryn Otoshi. “This one was simple but had a great message,” says program director Katie Chiaverini. “All of the ‘colors’ in the book had different personalities and ‘red’ was a bully that was particularly mean to ‘blue’. All the other colors were afraid to stand up to red until the character ‘Number One’ came along. ‘One’ helped the others see they could also stand up for what they believe in.” Once they had chosen a piece to perform, the participants designed sets, wrote a script, and selected their own costumes and matching accessories, even painting their own masks. The girls quickly began to form a team, with older students helping the younger participants.

“A lot of focus is on collaboration and skills that can be life applicable,” says Katie, whose years of international experience as an educator have taught her the unique position that arts occupy in teaching. “Most school systems around the world have a hyper focus on reading and math, especially rote skills, and are not providing enough opportunities to interact with the arts or use arts as a medium to learn new concepts and practice skills.”

Katie and Lauren met nightly to discuss and adjust their curriculum—as Katie explains, “we looked at which activities they enjoyed and tried to incorporate more of them each day.” The young performers “were very hands on and tactile, so we had to keep them moving and interested,” says Lauren. Teaching theater in a second language presented its own challenges for the staff. Despite Lauren’s command of basic Spanish, she found some things outside her vocabulary: “terms like props, scenery, and upstaging, which are not colloquial.”

The teachers themselves are intimately familiar with the value of an early start in theater. At age 11, Lauren organized a group of friends to re-create a West Side Story GAP commercial: “a defining moment for me as a young ‘director’.” Her theatrical studies led her to Santa Clara University and on to Disneyland, where she has spent the past three years performing, casting, and teaching. “Working with Far Corners fulfilled a lifelong goal of teaching abroad while incorporating the arts, which are obviously very near to my heart,” she says. Children’s program teaching assistant Mariela Herrera Gonzalez, a Costa Rican native who also managed costumes and props for Spelling Bee, credits theater with bringing her out of her shell as a young teenager. “I have seen shy people change completely when they step onstage. That's what happened to me, at least. It makes me happy that other people can experience it at a much younger age.” According to Katie, the students weren’t the only ones who learned from the experience: “As a teacher and parent I learned so much from the participants and their families as well.”

As their play concludes, the girls stand facing the audience, numbers aloft, confident and beaming. The pride in their expressions as they strike their final poses transcends age and language.

“Bueno, todo me gusta” says participant Sara, “así que no se cuál es la parte que me gusta.” I like everything. I couldn’t pick just one favorite part.
New Arts Workshops Offer Year-Round Theatrical Opportunities for Costa Rican Youth
Janet Burns

Since its founding, Far Corners Community Musical Theatre has continually grown and reshaped itself, embracing new opportunities for youth education and engagement. In Costa Rica, the organization has built from its original production at a single local school to include youth participants from a range of ages and locations in its summer musicals, and has begun exploring ways to offer performance-based outreach programs outside the summer months.

Recently, FCCMT’s reach has expanded yet again with the introduction of regular youth arts workshops. This project has been largely planned, coordinated, and run by San Jose-based pianist and music educator Jeanina Cordero. Jeanina began working with FCCMT in 2012 as a pit musician for Once On This Island. After returning to the pit for 2013’s In the Heights, she received word that the Board of Directors was looking for a new member. “Without hesitation, I filled out my application,” she said, and joined the board in October 2013.

Since then, her main role as a board member has been organizing workshops for students from Monteverde and surrounding communities. In addition to marketing, reaching out to interested students, and helping to teach the free Saturday classes, Jeanina has taken advantage of San Jose’s rich artistic community by engaging fellow musicians, artists, performers, and dancers as workshop instructors.  

February of this year marked the program’s first event: a dance workshop featuring elements of salsa, merengue, bolero, and bachata. Under the guidance of dance professional Randall Gonzalez, students practiced traditional dance steps individually, then in couples. After three hours, Jeanina reported, “everyone was exhausted, but -- at the same time -- fascinated! Randall and his huge energy made for an extraordinary workshop.”

Since then, actor and theater technician Derek Reise Yglesias has led two theater skills workshops, the first in May and the second in September. These classes began by warming up the body and mind with theater games, encouraging creative thinking and movement. Over the course of each 2.5 hour workshop, students learned to connect these skills to theater performance principles, which, Jeanina explained, harness both the voice and the body through acting.

The workshops received a “dynamic response and good participation,” she says, and she believes that the number of attendees -- typically 10 to 15 -- will grow as information about the workshops is spread through advance advertising and word of mouth. The program is already gaining steam, however, and in May “about 5 seniors attended the workshop, and that was a surprise!” Thinking on her feet, she “adapted the intensity of the exercises to their capabilities,” and found that the younger and older students were quite happy to learn and play together.

For Jeanina and her peers, the workshops offer a new way to reach students and share their passions. “My main motivation for working with FCCMT is that I love the arts -- all of them!” she explained. “And I believe that all people have the right to participate in them and learn about how wonderful they are. I feel fulfilled every time a workshop is conducted, because young people have learned about extraordinary things, and enjoyed themselves in a healthy way.”
FCCMT Brought Traveling Spelling Bee All Over Monteverde
Christie Coran

There's hardly a "typical" year for Far Corners Community Musical Theatre. But this past summer represented a first in FCCMT’s 8 years of presenting live theater in Monteverde, Costa Rica: between July 31st and August 3rd, they performed their annual musical at not one, but three different local venues!

For the past three years, FCCMT has performed at an empty storefront in El Centro Comercial, a local shopping center. The single venue allows the cast to rehearse in their performance space, and the staff to construct elaborate sets and lighting. However, as El Centro Comercial grows and thrives as a social center, FCCMT was unable to have a full run of their show, El 25to Concurso Anual de Deletreo Local (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) due to the demands of other organizations that needed the space.

At first glance, putting on a traveling show seems daunting. "Not only did we have to tech the show three times more often than normal, but we also had one third the normal time to do it," explained Zeke Blackwell, the show’s Technical Director, who had previously directed FCCMT Monteverde’s Once On This Island in 2010. The staff also had to transport the set, costumes, and actors to and from each location.

As they have done over and over in the past, the local community rallied together to make the undertaking possible. "It was incredible the way that community members came together to provide the support necessary for performing our show in three different places," said Blackwell. "It was a huge collaboration and hugely rewarding."

Not only did the community rise to the occasion but, according to Blackwell, so did the cast, comprised of local youths ages 10 to 19. Although the actors had little or no time to rehearse in each new space, Blackwell said that they adjusted quickly and adeptly: "I was very impressed by how gracefully [they] handled [it]... They didn't miss a beat, and the show got better and funnier every night."

The choice to perform in additional venues yielded unexpected–and delightful–results. "It ended up being a fantastic opportunity," said Blackwell. In addition to performing at the Centro Comercial, FCCMT "had the honor of being the first large-scale performance in the Monteverde Friends School's new and beautiful Meeting House." FCCMT also brought the first act of Spelling Bee to CTPSE, Monteverde's public high school. "I feel like we really had the chance to bring the show to more and different parts of the community than we have in the past," Blackwell pointed out.

The summer's El 25to Concurso Anual de Deletreo Local demonstrated once again that, with the help of a community as strong and supportive as Monteverde, new challenges can turn into unforeseen opportunities for growth and creativity. One can only imagine what the summer of 2015 holds for FCCMT and Monteverde!
Get Involved: Join A Committee!

As part of a recent effort to better organize our diverse programs, FCCMT has created six committees that will include board members and volunteers, and we are looking for more volunteers to join. If you see a committee that interests you and would like to learn more or get involved, please contact Katherine at volunteer@farcornersmusicals.org

The Musical Theater Connections: Costa Rica Committee oversees our annual teen theatre program in Monteverde, as well as the children's theatre program.  A large part of the committee's work is marketing the program to U.S. high school and college students, as well as setting goals and objectives and collecting data to evaluate the program. The committee will also set the budget for the program, revise staff job descriptions, and select the musical to be performed in 2015.

The China Committee is working to establish a partnership with a school or an NGO in China and begin a program with similarities to our program in Monteverde.  Our goal is to send a small group to China in 2015 to run a short program and scout out possible locations, with a full fledged summer program to begin in 2016.  We will be finding potential partners, choosing the staff members, and navigating finances, visas and other logistical needs for our pilot summer program.

The Communications Committee is a new committee that was created to oversee FCCMT’s newsletter, website, facebook, and other media outlets. Our goal is to continue to improve our online presence and to add other avenues for communications, such as twitter. We will be sure to keep you updated!

The Workshops Committee organizes workshops in Monteverde area for teenagers. These workshops involve different arts disciplines, such as theatre, dance and music. Our work consists of finding volunteers to lead the workshops, finding venues, and setting dates for the events. Our goal is for young people to experience different artistic areas.

The 5-Year Review Committee is a temporary committee whose objective is to gather and analyze information about the past five years of the MTC: Costa Rica program. The committee will create a report detailing the strengths and successes of the program as well as identifying areas needing improvement or growth. The report of the committee will directly influence future Far Corners programs.

The Fundraising Committee will coordinate FCCMT’s two major fundraising efforts, the annual campaign in December and the Indiegogo campaign in June/July. In addition, the committee will be searching for ways to expand FCCMT’s funding options by exploring grants, endowments, and partnerships with both organizations and individual donors. The committee welcomes involvement from anyone with experience or interest in grantwriting or nonprofit financial management.
Staff Updates: Where are they now?
Katherine Szocik
A five-season veteran of FCCMT’s program in Costa Rica, Erin is now living in Syracuse, New York and working as a Teaching Fellow with Redhouse Arts Center. In addition to teaching theater classes for pre-K through 5th graders at a low-income, bilingual (Spanish/English) school, she is the Resident Choreographer for the theatre company. She is also on the board of Far Corners. When asked about her work with Redhouse, Erin responded:
Erin Lafferty
“It’s [about] giving young people the same opportunities I had to express myself in a productive, healthy, and supportive forum. It’s the responsibility I feel to keep the arts alive and growing through the education of the next generation. Redhouse is very unique in that it is both a community and professional theater while also having a robust outreach and education program. For every show, Redhouse brings in professional actors and designers – usually from New York City – and hires local artists in the Syracuse community. This creates a really collaborative and open environment where people are constantly creating and thinking innovatively.”
Ezekiel Blackwell

Since tech and media directing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in Monteverde, Costa Rica, Zeke has relocated to Sitka, Alaska. A very different corner of the world from Monteverde, yet equally remote, Sitka is located on two main islands in the panhandle region of Alaska.

Zeke works as the Young Performers Theater Director at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. He also remains active with Far Corners and is a member of the Board of Directors. Asked why he chose to work at Sitka, Zeke said:
“The mission of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp really resonated with me, in part because it's similar to that of Far Corners. We believe that we can help build community through the arts, because the arts make us responsible for each other as humans by providing a medium to express and understand. I believe arts education is fundamental to other aspects of education by fostering creativity, collaboration, and curiosity in young people, and I think that these skills are applicable no matter what you pursue.”
Luis Dario Villalobos Castro
After graduating from high school in 2013,  FCCMT veteran Dario took a year off to teach K-12 music at the Centro de Education Creativa (CEC), a private school in Monteverde. This August, Dario moved from Monteverde to Northfield, Minnesota to begin studying at St. Olaf College. He is part of the class of 2018, double-majoring in theatre and music with a concentration in management studies. He sings tenor in the Viking Chorus and will begin rehearsals for Cymbaline, a Shakespeare play, this January. Reflecting on his gap year, Dario says:
“I think that taking time off and not going to school right away really helped me understand what I wanted to do… I learned a lot from the kids. spending time with kids can really just make you realize that sometimes life is not a big deal… They had so much fun and I had so much fun with them that I kind of ignored the whole college thing and the whole stress of it. It all worked out very well.”
FCCMT China Update
Christina Kirk

In 2008, FCCMT travelled to the Chinese city of Jiujiang, and with the help of Jiujiang University students put on a production of Fiddler on the Roof. The program was a resounding success and prompted interest in establishing a permanent program in China. Since then, the group has has been focused on establishing connections with prospective schools.

This trans-national effort, involving volunteers from multiple time zones, has required what FCCMT China Committee member Frances Wilson describes as the "creative" use of EverNote software, Skype, and email. Google services, such as google drive where staff can share documents, have been unreliable due to China’s restrictive internet policies.

Through ongoing effort and collaboration, FCCMT has established contact with an English school in Beijing. The staff there is excited about the prospect of bringing musical theater to their school. The next step is to test the waters by running a preliminary two-week “camp” where the students can rehearse and perform a two- or three-score musical program. The results of this camp will be used to assess the feasibility of establishing a more permanent program there, like the one in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

The team is excited about the possibility of returning to China as soon as February. Through the success of preliminary smaller programs, the group hopes to establish a baseline to secure more funding and launch a larger program in the coming years.

Currently, the group’s biggest need is more connections in China: specifically, people to scout locations, translate, and assist in preliminary programs. If you can fill any of these roles, have friends or connections in China, or are interested in volunteering or committing resources to help us build this program, we would love to speak with you!

Please contact Katherine at volunteer@farcornersmusicals.org.

Support our programs!

FCCMT depends on the contributions of individual supporters around the world to make our programs possible.  A donation of ANY amount makes a real difference in our ability to provide opportunities in the performing arts to youth in under-served communities.  
Click here to donate now on our website.
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