by Erin Shelby
Musical theatre is on intermission.
There isn’t much going on, in person that is.
The acting has arrived at a terribly long pause.
The singing is at an abnormally long rest.
The dancing has stopped.
The costumes are on the rack. Are they going to smell like mothballs when we’re ready to use them again?
In-person arts are on pause, for now, that is.
There are so many reasons why people are missing the performing arts. Why do people love the arts so much? What does singing and dancing and acting add to our world that we’re missing right now?
The arts are a community.
When theatre venues open their doors again, they will reveal themselves as community centers. Gathering places, if you will. Whether it’s to watch a play, see a musical, or go to the ballet, people use the arts to socialize. Relationships are formed in these places, and for some, it’s like a family. Everyone needs a place where they can go to be part of a larger community, and for some people, it’s the artistic places.
The arts are revealing.
In a world where loudness is often valued over quiet confidence, getting involved in an artistic production can allow people to analyze deep issues while exploring a script. The arts can be an equalizer for people of all backgrounds and personality types to come together around a common cause. Personally, I don’t thrive at a busy party or in an open-floor plan office, but in an artistic setting, I enjoy making connections with other people while we’re striving toward a common goal. No matter how you’re wired or how you would describe yourself, the arts can provide a place for you to create something beautiful alongside others.
The arts welcome you.
For now, the arts are mostly closed, but when this intermission is over, there will be a place for you. Community theatres will need people to fundraise, publicize, paint set pieces, help with props, sell tickets, and so much more. If you’re ready to play, the arts will welcome you.
That is, after this intermission is over.
2020 is officially history and it’s hard to imagine that makes too many people sad. It was a tough one, in many ways, but there were also some great things that happened. For example, while we formed this company in the second half of 2019, it really started ramping up in early 2020. The first author we brought into the fold signed with us in April and we are thrilled to now have 14 members of the Shine-A-Light family with several others currently under consideration. We also published 14 manuscripts (not including the 4-6 freebies per month we have been putting on our site since September) this year and are excited about the 24 that are in the editing/formatting phases right now. Within our family, we are aware of 48 additional projects that are currently in the writing and/or development phases, too.
All of that makes the prospect of 2021 very exciting to us and we are intent on it being the year we build the support element of the family atmosphere. To aid in this process, we have reserved a private Facebook group and a new YouTube channel. We are hoping that the “members only” Facebook group can be a place where we are all able to communicate with one another and share ideas about how to promote our work. The YouTube channel will be a place to help us gain exposure. We would like to produce material that both private schools can use in chapels and educators in the classroom.
Speaking (or, writing) of exposure, we wanted to attend private school and homeschool conventions in 2020 but they all got cancelled due to COVID-19. We are currently signed up for an event here in Arizona scheduled for July, one in Tennessee scheduled for March and a third in April that will hopefully happen in Texas. There are others we also plan to attend in Florida, Colorado and New York. These conferences would be great exposure for Shine-A-Light as a company as well as for the whole family and their individual works. Please join us in praying that these opportunities are not taken away from us again this year. Especially now that we have built up a bigger inventory of great material and have so much more to offer.
I am not a parent, and although I spent 20 years in the classroom and will always be a teacher at heart, I did not have to endure the abrupt switch to remote learning and all the logistics that accompanied it this year. I also did not want to send a bunch of links to multiple online resources! From what I can tell, parents and teachers are already getting inundated with those from countless other company websites, forums, organizations, etc. I figured you are all “linked out” by now! I would be! So for my first blog post, I am going to just share my thoughts from the heart.
Parents, whether you choose for your child(ren) to be educated through traditional or non-traditional methods next year, it will be the right choice. You know your child, you know your circumstances, and you know what’s best for your family. Fortunately, we live in a country where we are free to make that choice and, as has been proven by these unprecedented times (I couldn’t help myself), there are a plethora of resources out there to support your decision. When it comes right down to it, all children are homeschooled. It doesn’t matter whether they attend a public school, private school, charter school, online school, co-op, or an actual homeschool program, education begins in the household. Parents are the teachers and life is the curriculum. My encouragement to you this summer is to continue homeschooling your children. Use resources if you wish, but the bottom line is, if you have created your “classroom” as a place that operates on love, standards, boundaries, consequences, follow-through, safety, trust, and respect, your “students” will flourish no matter what school looks like for them in the coming months.
Teachers, I don’t know how you did it! I am so impressed by what I saw and heard from my friends and colleagues that were in the trenches every day, trying to figure out what to do just to survive, first of all, but then how to improve as the year went on. I know teachers are innovative, but this event took everything to a whole new level! My encouragement to you this summer is to relax and revel in your accomplishments! Again, there is much uncertainty about the next school year, more or less depending on where you live, but as a whole, teachers and administrators have shown that they can handle whatever comes their way to create an educational environment, whether physical or virtual, for students to thrive!