{PRETITLE} Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater {POSTTITLE}

Rating: (41 reviews)
Author: See details Amazon Warehouse Deals Fulfilled by Amazon Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
ISBN : 1594488223
New from $11.55
Format: PDF

Free download PRETITLE Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater [Hardcover] POSTTITLE from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link

Friday Night Lights meets Glee—the incredible and true story of an extraordinary drama teacher who has changed the lives of thousands of students and inspired a town.
 
Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows like Rent and SpringAwakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders. Michael Sokolove, a Levittown native and former student of Volpe’s, chronicles the drama director’s last school years and follows a group of student actors as they work through riveting dramas both on and off the stage. This is a story of an economically depressed but proud town finding hope in a gifted teacher and the magic of theater.

Direct download links available for PRETITLE Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater POSTTITLE

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (September 26, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594488223
• ISBN-13: 978-1594488221
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

{PRETITLE} Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater {POSTTITLE}

As the book opens, Cameron Mackintosh, a billionaire Broadway producer with famous musicals and plays under his belt- Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon - drives in his stretch limo from Manhattan to watch a high school performance of Les Miserables given by the theater department of the Harry S. Truman School in the suppressed and struggling town of Levittown, Pennsylvania. Why would a distinguished producer be bothered? Why indeed! The Truman drama department under the directorship of Lou Volpe had become a sort of miracle- some of the best high school theater in America had been lovingly choreographed in the otherwise undistinguished school. Lou Volpe had put Truman High School on the map.

Levittown, the epitome of a blue collar town where individuality seems to be suppressed, houses all the same, 17,311of them litter the landscape. People far from academia may say DART-mouth not myth and very likely pronounce the "h" in Amherst. In this town at Harry S. Truman High School, a somewhat run down edifice itself, is a knight in shining armor. Lou Volpe, the teacher of drama at the school, knows that theater can cause the imagination to soar and escape Levittown. His students go on to become news anchors, producers, entertainment executives and founders of theater in their own communities. Like all great teachers, Volpe is an inspiration to his students as well as a catalyst.

Author Sokolove, a Levittown native, is a former student of Volpe's and he will chronicle Volpe's last school years before he retired with dramas both on and off the stage. The struggles of the students are riveting and we follow several of them as they deal with every conceivable obstacle on the rocky road to growing up.

At long last, my "targeted newsletter" from Amazon Vine came up with a selection that it seems to me I was totally destined to review. Michael Sokolove's magnificent "Drama High" completely matches my own experience. I had a son who participated in the drama programs of the two high schools he attended, and my own 19 years of high school teaching was at Avondale High School, the performing arts magnet school for DeKalb County, Georgia.

Sokolove's splendid narrative functions at many levels. First and foremost, of course, it is a stunning tribute to the work of Lou Volpe, who developed and sustained the Truman HS drama program in Levittown, PA during the 40 years of his amazing tenure. The story additionally brings to life the daring and "edgy" productions Volpe was able to mount, and contains vivid and empathic mini-biographies of many of the students whom Volpe taught over the years. It is also a keen sociological study of the school and town itself during the turbulent end of the 20th Century. Finally, it is an incisive critique of the tragic decline of arts education in American public schools, which has accelerated unbelievably in the first decade of the 21st Century. As the author points out early on in the book,

"Volpe's methods are far from scientific. They are not easily tested, nor have they been really monitored. A couple of generations of principals, school superintendents, and school boards have pretty much just left him alone. He is that one teacher that anyone needs to get anywhere in life. He became that by having been given room to explore and express and expand his genius.