The voters spoke twice in the past and yet again a third and final time Tuesday. The Bentonville School Board and administrators got the win they were hoping for with a millage increase for a new, scaled-down-yet-muchneeded high school. Very well. We can move forward now, taking care of business and our kids.
This turned out to be an object lesson for all public oftcials and taxing bodies: Don’t shoot for Mars when the moon will do.
In the matter of grandscale facilities versus toneddown ones, a relatively smaller high school will present opportunities for innovation in design and practice. No one involved, residents or school oft cials alike, should consider this new school as “second best.” Surely the children attending the new school in ourwestern additions should not feel second rate. Let’s put on our thinking caps as we did in kindergarten and fi nd new solutions for old problems in more manageable spaces.
The word “bigger” does not always have to be linked to “better.”
This brings to mind something that has bothered me for a while about Bentonville High School regarding performing arts spaces.
“Say what?” you respond.
“Isn’t the Arend Arts Center good enough?”
Well, yes and no. Whilewe have embarrassing riches in this fine performance hall that can fly opera scenery and comes with a lovely adjacent art gallery, there is to my knowledge no smaller or “black box” theater for any of our high school drama and public speaking classes. A black box theater is a common format at colleges and community theaters. Ironically, it is common in school systems that can’t afford a space as grand and well-appointed as our Arend center.
A black box, sizewise, is between a seminar class room and an auditorium and off ers fl exibility, economy and intimacy no huge hall can provide. It’s not new science. Often built to allow arena or thrust stage layouts where the audience surrounds the actors, a black box is just the ticket for smaller-scale plays, one-acts and improvisational exercises and, in music,quartet and ensemble performances. Rarely do they seat more than 300.
A perfect example of the need for a black-box facility came to me in the Arend a few years ago as high school drama students presented Thornton Wilder’s classic play “Our Town.” It is the sweetest and most poignant example of minimalist staging in American theater, yet I ached with sympathy for the talented young actors as they struggled to portray the intimacy of their characters in the cavernous Arend. It just didn’t work. It was like putting the Ringling Bros. in the Superdome. It’s hard for the daring trapezist to be amazing when he swings below you, not above.
Small-scale works give more students opportunities to participate and hone presentation skills. Not every play need be a Rodgers and Hammersteinextravaganza. Not every concert need be of full-scale symphony orchestras or grand choruses. For a system the size of the Bentonville district, not having a blackbox or similar scaled-down venue is like having our expansive, state-of-the-art athletic facilities with no weight room or no sideline warmup spot for a place kicker.
The purpose of dramatic arts, oratory and music in public school is not just arts for arts’ sake and not just for the few students who will continue on with performance careers. Even though my eldest son has made music his life’s work thanks to the high school, I believe the key benefi t of performing arts programs is to teach kids how to “state their cases” once they get into the real world. Flexible facilities, even scaled-down ones as in a black-box or small-concert venue,provide experiences that more readily segue into adult worklife. Ask a typical Walmart vendor if he or she should have been paying better attention in high school speech class. The answer will be “yes.”
Based in the hometown of the largest corporation in the galaxy, Bentonville schools ought to be teaching more students, in appropriate spaces, how to communicate on both large and small scales in readiness for the workplace.
School Board members gained their victory with the theme “Smaller is better.” Where opportunities arise and fit, this same theme should be carried through in innovation and design of the new high school, not just for performing arts, but throughout the new campus. TED TALLEY IS A RESIDENT OF BENTONVILLE WHO HAS LIVED IN THE OZARKS FOR 18 YEARS.
Opinion, Pages 11 on 09/22/2013