The Atherton Theatre just finished their first ever Christmas performance at a nursing home!
This year, Atherton’s Theater three and four classes took twenty minute versions of “A Christmas Carol”, and “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” to nursing homes in our community. After having a discussion in class on what the next unit should include, holiday performances were a common theme. Shelby Steege (Atherton’s Theatre and Stagecraft Teacher) decided nursing homes would be a meaningful community outreach.
“My mom worked in nursing homes my whole life, so I knew that oftentimes they got overlooked for things like schools coming in for performances. So instead of
going the route of taking our shows to elementary schools, I decided to contact local nursing homes to see if they would be interested,” Steege said.
Steege created a schedule, completing paper work for the field trips. Meanwhile, the students had to commit to the work of producing the productions; picking editors, scripts, conducting casting, rehearsing, and incorporating technical elements into their shows.
Leo Warden (12), was the director of “A Christmas Carol”, a story about a grumpy old man, learning to be good as he’s visited by three ghosts. Warden compiled sources for a script, working on casting, staging, costuming, and even acting himself as The Ghost of Christmas Past. Warden recounts his love for “A Christmas Carol”, noting its nostalgic feeling.
“I’ve loved “The Christmas Carol” ever since I was little. I’ve read the book and I’ve also watched the movies every single year,” Warden said.
Warden notes the impact of the plays, which may provide the residents with a distraction from their struggles, bringing back feelings of their childhoods.
“It really gives these people some joy to be able to keep their minds off of some bad things in their lives, and they’re able to focus on these kids showing them a story they may have loved when they were a kid or in general,” said Warden.
Kae Hyden (11) was the director for “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, a German origin story of Santa Claus as he first meets the elves who shape him into who he is known as today. Hyden’s job was to keep everyone together and on task. Hyden’s focus when leading the group was to lead to a show that would move the audience.
“It was important to me to make it a good show even if it was just one time, since the people in the nursing home were looking forward to it. I just wanted to make it good enough for if there was one person in a room, or 200. I wanted something that would make people happy, laugh, or have a good time watching it,” Hyden said.
Hyden emphasizes the importance of bringing theatre to the community.
“It’s really special since we are sharing it with people who don’t have the same access to the performing arts and things that everybody else has. People in nursing homes are also secluded from their families a lot of the time, so to bring Christmas to them was especially important to me,” Hyden said.
The classes performed on December 10th at Nazareth Home Clifton Campus, having also planned to perform at Nazareth Home Highlands campus, with NTI preventing the second trip from happening. Regardless of that setback, Steege is really proud of the results.
“I was really happy with the outcome. Both from a performance perspective because I feel like everyone pulled together a performance they should be happy with; But even more so I was happy with the response from the residents at the nursing homes. They were very engaged in the performances and had lots of compliments to give when we were done,” Steege said.
Steege emphasizes the importance of bringing theatre to nursing homes, bringing out-reach to less noticed parts of the community.
“I think it is always good to give back to the community and having young people come in to perform theatre is not something that many residents of nursing homes get to have. It’s something that might have been very important to them throughout most of their lives, and we’re giving that something back,” Steege said.
When asked if she would do this experience again, there was no doubt in Steege’s mind.
“Absolutely. I’d do it in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact, we were asked if we have any performances in the future, to let them know so we could come back again,” said Steege.
