Students from Old Rochester Regional’s Advanced Placement English 12 class are preparing for a school-time performance of “The Kite Runner” at the Zeiterion Theatre on Wednesday, April 4. The show is a stage adaption of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel of the same title, which presents Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion through the eyes of a young boy. The students are currently reading The Kite Runner as their assigned reading for the month of March. The performance at the Zeiterion will be a capstone to the unit.
The tickets were purchased by the school with the help of Principal Michael Devoll, enabling students to see the performance for a small fee that covers the cost of the bus. Students will be missing only a few classes in order to see the performance; they will leave at 8:45 am and return at 10:50 am.
There was a short scare for the A.P. English students last week when it looked like they wouldn’t actually be able to attend the performance. This was because the school had purchased tickets for the performance on Thursday, April 5, which coincided with the school’s “Every 15 Minutes” program. “Every 15 Minutes,” which educates the seniors at Old Rochester Regional about the dangers of drinking and driving, is a mandatory school assembly every year. The presentation was scheduled for the same time as “The Kite Runner,” but after some discussion with the administration at the Zeiterion, it turned out that the A.P. English class could attend the performance on April 4 instead. The class is still missing the police presentation for “Every 15 Minutes,” but they will have a separate presentation during their English class to make up for it.
The performance at the Zeiterion isn’t the only learning that is happening outside of Old Rochester Regional. Students from the class are also attending events at the Mattapoisett Free Public Library, which are being offered to library cardholders in preparation for the same theater performance. Last Wednesday, students attended a presentation by Dr. Gregory Johnson, who spoke about his volunteer experience in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. Dr. Johnson might be speaking to the entire ORR student body in the near future — school nurse Kim Corazzini is hoping to work out the details.
The students also attended a book discussion for The Kite Runner this Wednesday at the Mattapoisett Free Public Library. Not all students from the class were able to attend (many were participating in the Drama Club’s dress rehearsal) but those who did were exempt from the in-class assessment for the reading.
The A.P. English 12 class isn’t the only class to benefit from out-of-the-classroom learning. In the past month, students from the A.P. English 11 class and the Creative English 12 class attended a performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at Trinity Repertory Company after reading Shakespeare’s play in class. The school, making the field trip more affordable to students as they only had to pay for the bus, also purchased the tickets for that performance.
By Anne Smith