Three years ago Parkside Elementary School had the opportunity to add an after-school program. This spring, the club that sprang forth thanks to building and district funding is preparing to put on yet another play, “Stone Dragon Stew.”

With a little extra dough in the school’s pockets in 2022, Principal Jason Hillman and music teacher Michael Jaycox put their heads together to create an interactive activity for fourth and fifth grade students. After lots of discussion and preparation, Parkside administration added its drama club that spring. 

From the beginning, the students have been ready to work, and this remains true in their current play, which will be staged April 30, 1:30 p.m., at Parkside.

Play preparations

Jaycox said the play is based on the folktale of Stone Soup.

“It is a really beautiful story,” he said. 

According to the play synopsis, when stones of all sizes began falling from the sky, the villagers knew it was time to take care of their community pest. No matter the size of the dragon, the community works together to cure this beast.

Parkside students in fourth and fifth grade had the opportunity to be members in this production and were thrilled to get their parts this spring.

“It feels amazing to get your script,” fifth grade student Kaci Richmond said. “You feel like you have an important part in the play. But for me, I have to memorize a lot of lines, so it is kind of challenging.”

Offering a variety of roles gives the students an opportunity to incorporate their personalities within their parts.

“I love getting to watch the kids just embrace a character and be creative in different ways,” Jaycox said. “Lilli [Evans]  is our stone dragon, and she doesn’t have a whole lot of lines, but she also is a narrator, and she came up with a completely different voice and character for that narrator, versus just reading the lines. And I love that kind of stuff.”

The students meet each Wednesday after school, and get hard to work on many aspects of the production. From costumes to sets and memorizing lines, the students complete it all.

“I just buy costumes or prop pieces or things like that … I also ask for community help a lot of the time,” Jaycox said. “I also tell the kids that we are not a professional group … We are here to do our best.”

With the help of other teachers at Parkside, the group is able to accomplish many tasks in one practice.

Littering the floor in the Parkside gym are stones made of crumpled paper, and paint to add effect. The students compose their sets from cardboard, butcher paper and whatever supplies they can gather. That’s turned into, on the set, a neatly constructed cheese shop.

Large impact

While this production may seem as though it’s just fun and games, extracurriculars such as drama club, Jaycox said, help mold students into future leaders.

“My goal … and one of the main reasons I became an elementary teacher was to inspire love, kindness, and acceptance of lots of different things and they would carry that with them throughout the rest of their lives,” he said. “They would have this openness to new and other … and they would have respect for different cultures, different ideas, different music and different people.”

While Powell is a rather small community in this big world, it is important that educators inform youth just how big the world is, Jaycox said — whether that be through forms of entertainment, sports or even art.   

The drama program is aimed at students learning not only about play production, but also about leadership and organizational skills.

“It is fun and all, but sometimes it can get a little annoying,” fifth grade student Alex Hurst said. “We’re kids so we’re not fully on task and listening. Sometimes kids are off doing their own thing … but overall it is fun and we just love working.”

A sense of pride comes from the students’ shared experience.

“To me, it really affects Parkside Pride,” Richmond said. “By having to know the characters really well and having to compromise if they don’t know their role … it really just binds people together.”