For 5 years, Lawrence C. Garnell Jr. toured the nation with Mobile Ed Productions performing and training other actors in our acclaimed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assembly program. Mr. Garnell was very successful with the program and says, "Without the training I received from the tour and being on the road, I would not have developed the discipline in performing under varied conditions."
(The following story is entirely true. Except for the parts that are not. But the rest is. Well... most of it. Except the parts we changed. But it really happened. Sort of. Really! :-) - No one at Mobile Ed will accept responsibility for the writing of this ridiculous piece.)
Mobile Ed Productions sends wonderful school assembly performers from Michigan (and a few other states) out on the road every year in August to begin touring to schools pretty much all over the country. It is a rambling, crazy way of life alternating between the exhilaration of performing great school shows in front of happy kids and teachers and the loneliness of empty hotel rooms and long miles on the road. Thanksgiving and other family oriented holidays, usually give us an opportunity to get home for a few well earned days with loved ones.
There are many, many performers in this country making their livings, or trying to make their livings, through performing school assembly programs for kids. Some are good, some are great and some are, well ... some are not so great.
Based in Michigan, as we are, many of our school assembly performers are Michigan artists and teachers. It also happens frequently that performing school assemblies will get into your blood. A great school show performer, having worked for us for awhile, will retire to some other profession only to find they miss our odd little world.
Travel is a regular part of the life of a school assembly performer. Professional presenters of school assemblies are regularly “on the road”, and these "road warriors" often rack up huge amounts of miles during the course of a normal school year. One presenter of ours who does not usually travel as often or as far, is our wonderful “Dr Exhaustus” himself, Jeff Hoge. Jeff is resident in Chicago and regularly performs in schools all around northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, with his own program on the environment, “Our Changing Climate” as well as with our creative writing school assembly program “Young Authors Day”. In addition, during the winter, Jeff handles our Living Lincoln assembly program.
Your humble (cough,cough) writer has been with this company for more years than he likes to admit, but there is one performer who even has me beat! I started performing my Abraham Lincoln school assembly in January of 1989. To gauge how long ago that was, I always remind myself that while waiting to perform that morning, pacing back and forth in a school faculty lounge, I could look up at the television in the lounge and watch as George Bush took the Oath of Office .... George Bush senior, that is!
Yikes, it's been a long time doing school assembly programs!
How do you know which programs and how many presentations to do for your school? This is a question which comes up with any Elementary school or Middle School looking for ideas for school assemblies. Well, as famous detective Sherlock Holmes used to say: “Elementary, my dear Watson!, Elementary!”
Another story today about the experiences of one of our presenters, and the power of school assemblies to impact the lives of children!
I thought some of you might have an interest in learning a little bit about how the whole business of school assemblies and school assembly programs got started.
