(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring the new high school drama director, appeared in The Columbus Dispatch on September 18, 2002.)

Drama director overseeing rebirth of program, theaters

By Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Left: Todd Decker is turning Bexley's theater dreams into reality with a revitalized drama department and a program to rebuild three school theaters. The high-school theater is getting a new orchestra pit, seating, lighting and an expanded lobby. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Todd Decker’s dreams for Bexley’s drama program are nearly as lofty as those of the star-struck actors he’s mentoring.

Their eyes are on Broadway. His are on no less than a theatrical renaissance in the city’s schools.

Hired away after nine years as director of Columbus Public Schools’ theater program at Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center, Decker became Bexley’s theater guru this summer. He is director, producer, acting coach and design consultant all in one.

"I’m on the cutting edge of a rebirth of programming here," said Decker, who produced 50 shows at Fort Hayes. "The excitement here in the district has been amazing." -
As director of Bexley’s new theater-arts program, Decker will teach four drama classes a year at Bexley High School and run its drama club.

Then there is after school. He’s holding workshops for grades four through six and six through nine and directing an elementary theater troupe for grades four through six, a youth theater troupe for grades six through nine and two theater troupes for high-school students.

These are all new opportunities for the district.

"The kids are really starved for this," Decker said. "So many of them just want to be involved in any way."

The drama club, which formerly had a few members, attracted 100 students to the first meeting, he said. Auditions for the high school’s first show of the year, Dracula, brought a big response.

Those chosen for the show will make up the first high-school troupe. Each troupe will produce a show. Students in workshops will train in acting and be featured in performance showcases at the end of their eight classes.

All troupes and classes are restricted to Bexley students except the troupe and workshop for grades six through nine. They are open to any Bexley resident.

Paired with the district’s drama expansion is an ambitious theater-building project that started after Bexley voters approved a $27 million bond issue for the renovation of Maryland Elementary and the Cassingham complex, which includes the elementary, middle and high schools. Three theaters are being renovated. At Cassingham Elementary’s 1930s-era facility, which seats about 700 people, the chairs are being reupholstered and the interior repainted. New lights are being installed.

At Maryland Avenue Elementary, the stage will be updated as part of transforming the cafeteria into a "cafetorium."

The high school’s theater is the largest project. It’s being stripped and reshaped to include an orchestra pit, new seats, re-angled balcony seating, catwalks, new lighting and an expanded lobby. The Bexley Education Foundation has donated $2.1 million of the $3 million for that work.

The district is adding one new performance space -- an outdoor courtyard just outside the high school’s new arts wing.

After each theater is completed, it will open with shows produced by Decker’s troupes. Dracula, Nov. 14-16, will be the first at Cassingham’s theater.

Bexley Superintendent Michael Johnson said the costs associated with the beefed-up drama program -- $20,000 for theater productions and $70,000 for Decker’s salary -- are worth it.

"What is happening is our society is becoming so technological so quickly that people need time to have an experience that touches the soul, not just the mind," he said.

"Science and technology does not give the meaning to life that we need. It really takes the arts to bring reflective thought to what’s going on around us."

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