Chairs, tables, a couch, cardboard boxes, plywood planks and other theater props clutter what was once a classroom at Auburn’s defunct Great Falls School.
Drop that pile of debris at the center of Edward Little High School’s football field and it might resemble kindling for an old-fashioned bonfire and pep rally.
Delicious irony, there.
Edward Little Drama Club students and advisers are livid with their city for unceremoniously evicting the group from its seven-year home at the rickety, outdated former high school and elementary school.
“City personnel made the decision to throw (the Drama Club) out of the closet so they could rent it,” school drama director Penny Appleby wrote in a statement issued to folks who attended her “tour” of the club’s reassigned facilities last Tuesday evening.
Appleby says she wasn’t given the courtesy of a personal phone call or letter. But city officials did contact her boss, Principal James Miller, who dispatched janitors to relocate the group’s belongings.
Hey, the city owns Great Falls School. It has a right to rent rooms.
Wondering, then, if maybe the club’s aggression is a mite misplaced.
We need help now’
Perhaps it’s time for Edward Little to explain why one of its largest co-curricular groups was relegated to an off-campus site the size of a school restroom for its headquarters in the first place.
Have to wonder, too, how long this discussion would last if the Drama Club wore uniforms with their names and numbers on the back. Or if their performances were judged by gentlemen in black-and-white striped shirts.
“We cannot wait for a new facility,” Appleby continued in her missive. “There may never be one. We need help now.”
Appleby and the kids went public with their distaste for city politics. So how about lobbying the school to stop hemming and hawing and address the problem in a way that affords a group of the drama club’s size and talent the respect it deserves?
Of course, budgets are maxed out. From its largest districts to its smallest community schools, Maine educators make agonizing decisions every year about what’s worth keeping and what to cut.
Academic teams consistently get the closest view of the knife, and it’s worth asking why.
Lots of members
Edward Little’s Drama Club boasts a membership of more than 90 students. That’s greater than the number of athletes who play varsity football and boys’ and girls’ soccer combined.
“These students give mightily of their time in community service to this city,” Appleby wrote. “We need help.”
Twenty-three varsity athletic teams stretch Edward Little’s dollars and space to their absolute limit. But you can bet the school finds a comfortable location for their equipment and safe, convenient locations for practices and games.
Drama might not provide the same adrenaline rush as an 80-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter of a football game, but surely it fulfills the other criteria that schools enjoy touting as reasons for interscholastic competition.
Such as teaching life lessons. Learning to work with others. Being part of a community.
Under Appleby’s supervision, Edward Little drama students staged seven productions during the last academic year. Work is already under way on a musical that will cost this “team” $1,300 this season.
Maybe asking the school department to provide an on-campus auditorium at the aging ELHS facility is too much.
C’mon, though. Aren’t these kids worthy of the investment it might take to buy the trailer from an old 18-wheeler or a couple of all-weather storage boxes from Home Depot?
Anything less is unsportsmanlike conduct.
Kalle Oakes is the Sun Journal’s columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at koakes@sunjournal.com.
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