In December, Washougal School Foundation supplied a $1,000 Creative Classroom grant to Diana Larson’s Soundstage program at Jemtegaard Middle School. Back in March, Mrs. Larson found that the students’ spring play production would have to be postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic.
Coming into this fall term, she felt she needed a way to keep her students engaged in a collaborative project while also working within the stay-at-home restrictions. She chose to produce an audio play version of A Christmas Carol and the students were immediately on board. The challenge was finding the money to acquire the rights to the play, paying a couple of actors to supplement the adult roles, and paying a sound engineer to handle the intracacies of this completely audio production.
Thankfully, with money from the Associated Student Body, Boosters and WSF, Mrs. Larson was able to meet all of her goals for the radio play and have it released to the public in early December.
The production was a community success, with over 1,700 hits to the district website and the Soundstage students already planning to do another radio play this January. Since only part of this WSF Creative Classroom grant was used for the Christmas production, the remaining funds can be used to further engage the Soundstage students with their activities this school year.
With a background as a professional singer and actress, Mrs. Larson is a Special Education Paraeducator at Jemtegaard Middle School and has led the Soundstage program at Jemtegaard since 2018.
Click HERE to see the casting credits for the students, faculty and local actors who took part in the radio play!
