junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	melanie from massachusetts (8/5) Melanie is a Voyager day student at the Junior Program for her first summer. She loves theater and acting and her "Which Way to Broadway?" course, as well as her improv and theater arts mini-courses. Outside of Explo, she has acted in many plays, including Seussical and Beauty and the Beast. How is your summer at Explo going so far? Really good. What do you like about it? I like everything! How are your courses going? They’re going well. I’m taking “Which Way to Broadway?” and “Move Over Rembrandt”. In “Which Way to Broadway?” we’ve been making a play, and everyone gets a chance to be an actor, a director, a choreographer, a prop or scenery person . . . it’s really fun. Recently I’ve been directing and I’ve been acting. Which play will you be doing? Harry Potter. I play Ron. We mostly improv what we say, so I just basically fight with Malfoy and stuff. What made you decide to take that course? I love acting, and I just wanted to try it. It has been fun. Have you ever done acting outside of Explo? Yes! I’ve done The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Seussical, and Annie. I’ve done those with a theater group in my town. Wow, you must really like acting! Yeah, I’m really interested in it. What do you do in your other class, “Move Over Rembrandt”? It’s a painting class. We learn all about the different colors and how to use them. The other day we did splatter painting and it was really fun. We just took paint and put a little bit of water in it, then splattered it all over our big papers. Then we splattered ourselves a little bit! That must have been messy! What have you been learning about in that class? We’ve been learning about warm and cool colors, and we’ve learned how to draw still life scenes that we see. I drew a garden. And I drew an ocean using cool colors and a tree using warm colors. We could only use either warm or cool colors during that project. My favorite part was definitely the splatter painting, though. How are your mini-courses? They’re really fun. I’m taking performance arts and improv. In performance arts, we made up plays along with really fast music, and then we performed them. For the second day, we made protests and played fun games and stuff. How are Explo classes different from your classes at school? I’ve been learning new things, but they’re way more fun and they’re not boring. You’re always participating in games and learning new things that you’re interested in. The teachers are a little bit freer, and they don’t tell you exactly what to do all the time. Like, if I were taking a painting class at school, they would tell us what we need to draw and paint. In our Explo class, we could draw whatever we wanted. And in “Which Way to Broadway,” we got to vote on which play we wanted to do, so we picked Harry Potter. Have you been on any trips? Last week I went on the Blue Man Group trip, and it was awesome. My friend and I slept over at Explo and it was a lot of fun. Blue Man Group is sort of a performance arts group and they do a lot of fun stuff. They did drumming with paint, and they made music with a lot of different things. Have you stayed late for any main events? Yeah. I really liked the magic show, because he taught us how to do some tricks. He showed us how to do one with cups and balls, where the balls disappear underneath the cups. We also learned a card trick, and he even pulled a rabbit out of a hat. What made you decide to come to Explo? Well, my friends and my sister told me all about it, so I decided to try it. What were you expecting before you came? I was expecting to go to a Program where you get to choose what you’re going to do, and that’s what it is. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see some of my friends, but we get some times to hang out and talk during lunch and assemblies and stuff. What do you hope to accomplish in the final week? I want to learn some new techniques for acting and painting and stuff. What will be the most valuable thing that you take away? Probably everything I’ve learned about painting and colors, but also all the people I’ve met. It’s a really great place and you meet so many different people from all your courses. I’ve made a bunch of new friends because it’s pretty easy to make friends here. You get closer to your friends each day. Describe Explo in one word. Fun! If Explo were a type of food, what would it be? Ice cream! It’s really good. Explo is really, really fun, and there are all these assemblies and everything. The courses are so much fun because you learn new things and play tons of games, and you get to pick whatever you want for the activity time. Ice cream is really good because it’s surgary. more conversations > first session \| second session