ArtFarm Brings Drama Back to Fourth Grade

“We’re all here to support each other, learn our lines, relieve the pressure to have to know the answer. This is the time to make mistakes, big mistakes, funny mistakes, this is our time.” This is what Brooke Hardman Ditchfield said to her drama class last week, a class of nine and ten year olds at the who are learning what it really means to be an actor, a director, a producer.

In place of the Fourth Grade Theater Project, which for 17 years worked with Island fourth graders to produce plays, the West Tisbury School is working with the folks of ArtFarm this year. The two fourth grade classes come together once a week to work on nine fables, three of which will be video productions.

Mary Boyd, one of the two fourth grade teachers at West Tisbury School said, “ I don’t want to compare this with Fourth Grade Theater Project because they are so different. The Fourth Grade Theater Project was really tricky because of the amount of time involved in getting the kids to the theater every week. We lost an hour a day.”

In charge of this group are Brian and Brooke Ditchfield, who founded ArtFarm - an arts organization, which has theater, web design and production company components. Brian is now the Managing Director of The Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF), so the merging of their collective passions was a natural fit for this project. After one meeting with Boyd and Rebecca Solway, the other fourth grade teacher at West Tisbury, the project was off and running. “It really was an opportunity that I hadn't seen coming at all, but am so grateful that it did,” said Brooke Ditchfield.

From the beginning, the group knew that trying to recreate the past wasn’t what they wanted to do. “I wanted the ‘show’ to be something different, outside the box, not trying to recreate the past but forge a new kind of project for the kids and our community,” she said. 

By bringing the production into the school, Boyd said, “It allows us to connect with what we’re learning in class, which is narratives and story telling. We’re learning that every story has an introduction, a body and a conclusion – just like the fables.” The classes are also working on masks for the play in Art and doing some set design in Industrial Tech. “The Fourth Grade Theater Project was great because it was about coming together as a community of fourth graders, but this is about coming together as a school around theater.”

Brooke and Brian Ditchfield wrote the scripts. Another ArtFarm member, Elle Lash, who has worked with theatre legend Anne Bogart for many years and ran her own theatre company in New York City producing new works, had the idea to incorporate Aesops Fables into the scripts. Which, according to Ditchfield, wound up being perfect. “The fables are short enough that every student gets to play several roles, the production design can be kept super simple, and the lessons being taught through the telling of these stories are timeless,” she said.

The incorporation of filmmaking is also a new component this year. “My husband Brian and the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival had done a residency at the Charter School and ever since then we have wanted to work with kids and film. MVFF is also rapidly expanding their programming for kids, as well as its educational outreach, so this seemed like it was the perfect vehicle.”

For a few of the kids, having the filmmaking was a huge relief. “There are kids who really, really don’t want to go out on stage. The film piece means they still get to be involved,” said Boyd.

“We took into account students who play instruments, students who sing and dance, students who feel comfortable with computers and technical elements, students who don't want to, or thought they didn't want to, be on stage at all, students who are interested in directing ... it really was a very careful process where we considered the needs of every single student. Ultimately, the groups we ended up forming were the groups that we felt allowed each student to have their very own custom made theatrical experience. One group is telling Fables in a "straight play" format. One group is incorporating music and dance. And the third group is shooting three short films that will screen throughout the performance,” said Ditchfield. 

The program is immediately impressive. The kids who sit on the floor around Ditchfield when she tells them it’s their time to make mistakes are completely engaged, scripts in hand, soaking in her words. The fourth graders-turned-actors have memorized their lines and have even come up with walks and accents for their characters on their own. Down the hall, the filmmakers are careful, serious and super focused on making sure the lighting is right, that the sound is coming through and that props are visible.

Said Ditchfield of the process so far; “I am struck everyday by the kindness and joy that exists among these students and the West Tisbury School in general. I have so much fun every day I am with this group and in this environment. I have worked as an Artist in Residence through various theatre companies in many schools, including severely underserved schools on Chicago's South Side and around the Boston area, and I am reminded everyday how lucky we all are to live in this community, have the resources that we do, and the vision of fantastic teachers and administrators who understand the importance of arts in education. So I guess my favorite thing so far is the gratitude this group has inspired within me, as an artist and as an Islander.”

Final productions of Aesop's Fables will be shown to the public at the Chilmark Community Center on February 17th at 6 pm and Februay 18th at 4 pm.