"I wish I had this book before I
started my 25-year teaching career.
It made me smile often as I read
things I learned quickly, things
I learned slowly, and some things
I wish I had learned before I left
the classroom! Thanks, Gai and
Diane, for teaching students
and teachers from your heart."
Michael Peitz, Executive Director,
Educational Theatre Association EdTA
  Break a Leg    
   


Break a Leg

"Give me four trestles, four boards, two actors, and a passion."
Lope de Vega, playwright

My book is a love letter to anyone who teaches youth about Theatre or those who are thinking about teaching Theatre. I give you a standing ovation and a round of applause each day for all you do for the future of world Theatre, whether you are training future actors and technicians or educated audience members. 
Some of my tips include
• Protect your emotional and physical health.
• Thank your family and friends. Students will graduate or move on.   There will always be another production. Loved ones are for life.
• It is okay to cancel a rehearsal to attend a conference of
  professional development event. You return refreshed, and the   students appreciate a break. 
• Sigh ten times a day. If you don't, you are under sighed. 
• Give yourself a standing ovation and round of applause
  each day for what you do.

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."
Thornton Wilder, playwright

Some of the Truisms, Axioms, Maxims,
Sayings included in this book include
You will. . .
• most likely be the first teacher to arrive on campus and
  the last car out of the parking lot.
• during faculty meetings, think about your past, present, and
  future productions and realize that you don't know what the
  principal is talking about.
• need to each others that Theatre is part of the core curriculum
  and as important as other classes which the students take.
• helps to teach students to be advocates for Theatre Arts. 

"A teacher is an actor. To desire to teach, a person must have been enthralled by an idea or an experience of some kind himself and must desire that others have the opportunity to know about and be inspired by that same event or material in some way. To be able to transfer ideas, he must develop, in addition to the knowledge he accumulates, the ability to communicate that knowledge. This ability is an art or skill also known as teaching."  
From A Teacher Is Many Things by Earl V. Pullias and James D. Young