Extracurriculars are important

I believe that the core academic coursework should take precedence over almost everything else when school budgets are being tightened.  But students lose out on so much of educational value when extracurriculars are cut due to lack of funds.  Our local high school drama instructor explained it so well in describing how students benefit from participating in school plays.

Best reason to join the musical:

"I think being in a show makes you a stronger, more fearless person," he says. "Your skills improve; what you think you can do improves.

"I tell everybody, you should join the musical once, just to see what it's like," he says. "In my experience, more often than not kids say they wish they had joined earlier. It just seems to round out a person."

How the musical changes kids:
It puts kids on the right path.  "There are high standards to being in the play," he says. "You have to keep your marks up. If you're not coming to school, you're not (allowed) at rehearsal. Every director would like to say there's a giant emotional change and everybody's going to suddenly start reading epic Russian novels, but I honestly think that they get in the play and they like it and they don't want to screw up and get thrown out."

Review Press: Talking high-school musicals with some of the area's directors