“Free To Be You & Me”
**Events may have been canceled or postponed. Please contact the venue to confirm the event.
Date & Time
Fri, May 31 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Address (map)
401 N. Fairview Avenue, Goleta, CA 93117
Venue (website)
Montessori Center School
Montessori Center School’s Theater Specialist Program to Host
One Night of “Free To Be You & Me” for the Public
A children’s entertainment project created by actress and author Marlo Thomas!
On May 31st, some 40 elementary school students (4th through 6th grades) from Montessori Center School’s Theater Specialist Program will present over a dozen story scenes, songs and poems for the public from Actress and Author Marlo Thomas’ famous and timely “Free To Be You & Me” book and musical production. A key message of the performance is that your success is not based on your gender. Anyone – boy or girl – can achieve anything.
Directed by Montessori Center School’s Theater instructor, Garrett Blair, a theater artist and educator who studied at Columbia University and worked in New York for 17 years, the show is an ensemble production that encourages values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one’s identity.
Together the students selected which scenes, stories, and songs they will perform – all part of learning “group collaboration”. The premise of Mr. Blair’s teaching style is embraced in Founder of American Realism Constantin Stanislavski’s quote: “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.”
“I want my students to learn that the collective process – learning to work together and embrace each other’s ideas – is more important than ‘the self” and more important than anyone’s personal agenda,” Mr. Blair explained. “Whether I’m working with Lower Elementary students — first through third graders — or Upper Elementary students — fourth through sixth graders — the goal is the same: to learn actionable skills for collaboration that the students can take into any setting in life.”
Some of these skills include learning humility, letting go, and combining ideas with others. “The philosophy of ensemble collaboration is “Yes and…”, Mr. Blair said. “In other words, your idea might be great. Now let’s take that and add other people’s ideas as well. The result? The sum of the ideas become greater than any single idea.”
There are no scripts for the “Free to Be You and Me” performance. There is only repetition and rehearsal. “The children memorize quickly,” Mr. Blair said. “If they rehearse a scene a few times, they usually have it memorized. Because they are not learning a full musical, the pressure is off to memorize so much. But they do get together outside of rehearsals and that results in their bringing in more ideas for the show.”
The students also take on various other roles outside of performing, such as stage manager, lighting operator, set design, switching out props, and more.
“Free to Be You and Me” will be performed for the public at 6pm on Friday, May 31st in Montessori Center School’s multi-purpose building at 401 N. Fairview Avenue, Goleta, CA 93117. The show is free. For more information, visit https://mcssb.org/ or contact Montessori Center School at 805.683.9383.
About Montessori Center School (MCS)
Montessori Center School, located in Goleta, California, has provided students ages 18 months through 12 years old with creative and compelling education in a supportive, nurturing environment since 1965. MCS implements the internationally renowned Montessori Method of teaching and works to ensure that the school flourishes for today’s children and for generations to come.