Plays With A Purpose

Plays With A Purpose is a series of four interactive musical plays designed to teach elementary school children positive life lessons and values. Teachers are provided with workbooks and activities to reinforce the lessons taught in the plays. Students see these productions each year at the AFC Theater on Chicago’s south side.

Student Evaluations:

Thank you for letting me come and see the play. I really am happy that you wanted us kids to respect one another and to always have confidence in yourself and don’t let anyone put you down…After the play, I had self-control all day. Thank you very much.

Dear Jackie Taylor and members of the Black Ensemble Theater: Thank you for entertaining Dett School with that wonderful play “They Keep Talking About Me”. I like the part when you all started dancing. I also like the parts when you played the word games “Focus and Control Your Movement”. Another part of the play I enjoyed is…you don’t always have to let people get to you if you believe that you are special. Overall, what I learned from the play is people might have what you have or look the way you look, but everyone is special in their own kind of way. Everyone has feelings.

I liked the play, it was great. I really liked the control your movement part… I learned that when you talk about people they feel really sad and you don’t know what is going on in their life. You shouldn’t talk about people because you don’t want people to talk about you. You should try to help people.

Teacher Evaluations:

Our 4th grade students had the opportunity to see the performance, ‘I Can’t Do It, Yes You Can!” They enjoyed the play very much. I must say, I chuckled to myself many times during the skits. The “teacher” sounded a lot like me sometimes!

I thoroughly enjoyed your production of “They Keep Talking About Me”. The themes presented in the musical were very relevant to the everyday experiences of my students. The students were very attentive and came back to school singing the songs and begging me to ask them to “control your movement.