Located in Manhattan, Park Avenue Armory is a non-profit organization, dedicated to teaching students about performance art, and showing original and unique pieces you won’t find anywhere else in the city. They aim to create opportunities and learning experiences for students and civilians alike. In March of 2023, 10th grade students attended Alexander Zeldin’s play, “Love,” at the Armory. Unlike a traditional performance, the actors occasionally interacted with the students sitting on the stage, creating a feeling of immersion, realism, and relatability to the show. This is exactly what the organization intends to do: redefine what a performance has to be and share art with as many people as possible. As a partner with Park Avenue Armory, WHSAD students have the opportunity to see performances, participate in Youth Corps internships, and participate in residencies in sophomore and senior years.
Currently, the 10th grade is working on performing a skit of their own. Once a week teaching artists Vickie Tanner and WHSAD alum Shar Galarza come to the school and help lead students through the project. The first couple weeks everyone played around with improv exercises and acting prompts to help get a feel for the art before they moved onto the final project. The idea is that everyone in the class will act with one another to perform a small piece inspired by Zeldin’s play’s message regarding love. Each table group of about 2-6 came up with their own moment of love that was then incorporated to form the full class scene. These moments could be a hug, picking up a pencil for someone, standing up for a friend, etc. Next the students designed the set. They decided the best setting for the scene would be on a subway platform. They used plastic building blocks, fabric, paint, and their knowledge of the subway to complete the set. They created ads, train maps, and schedules and painted them onto the backdrop.
From this experience students learned how to collaborate with one another, create ideas, and draw inspiration from their surroundings. There was trial and error throughout the process, but the teaching artists helped the students work through it, and come to conclusions everyone was happy with. Seeing the project from start to finish helped paint a picture for how real artists put their visions to life. The whole program was really just showing the students that they can make their ideas into reality, and learn from the people around them.
Here are what some students learned from the experience:
Amina Clyde
I, for one, really enjoyed doing the Armory residency because it reminded me of my old middle school drama club. At first we started off with the play “Love” about a group of individuals in a shared home, performing small acts of kindness and love throughout the play. It was interesting to be in the audience as it made it feel more connected and real. The performances were really good, and I found myself actually really invested in the characters in a very short amount of time.
After the play we began doing improv in the classroom, which I didn’t participate in at first because I didn’t really have anything to offer and frankly, I didn’t want to. But there was one day I came in and went ‘why don’t I just go do it?’ And I did. It was fun to act out my idea, which was to be a pregnant woman to get the person in the “subway seat” to get up. I think going first also gave more people the confidence to go up. Because once one person takes the brunt of going first, it’s always easier to join in.
Then we got into the big project for the end of the session: the acts of love on the subway. We started by brainstorming scenarios that we could see on the train before actually building the car itself, which was really cool to do. Then we finalized the train ads and began to practice. The groups that went did super well on the stumble through and even better filming the scenes. It was fun to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The train sounds we added really tied together the whole thing, and as a person who takes the subway, I could see all that stuff really happening.
Overall, it was a really cool and unexpected experience to have. It gave me theater kid nostalgia, and I’m glad the final project looked really good. I will miss Armory days, but I’m glad we ended without any hiccups.
Timothy Martinez
Back in March, Mr. Koestner took his students to the Park Avenue Armory, a non profit cultural institution that displays performing and visual arts, to see Alexander Zeldin’s Love, a play that involves the struggle of a family and their neighbors living in a shelter. Before the play began, we met Vickie Tanner, a Park Avenue Armory teaching artist, who came on the stage and gave us insight on what we were about to see. I was excited, feelings of anticipation flowing through my body as I waited for the play to start. I was nervous, but all-the-more ready.
In my opinion, the entire play was a wonderful experience, and being immersed while sitting on the stage with my peers was the ‘cherry on top’. It felt like we were actually with the characters, and it had all been done beautifully.
Now fast-forward to mid-April, and Vickie and Shar, a former WHSAD student, visited WHSAD to work with the students on ‘creating a scene’. As the first few weeks went by, we started off small by working on acting out certain scenes that Vickie and Shar gave to us. It was fun, and we all shared many laughs while we were failing miserably to do what was asked of us. But, the more practice we put in, the more we were able to ‘get the hang of it’.
Then, we were given the task of picking 1 scene for a ‘final project’ we were working on, where everyone had to play a part. So, the whole class picked a subway as our ‘scene-setter’, and a group of students helped construct the subway area. While it took some time, the student-built subway all turned out to look great.
Finally, we all thought of things that people would do on a subway and used those things to act certain parts, in which we all choose our part to play. Finally, on Friday, after practicing our parts for a few days, was the time to fully film the scene. 2-3 takes later, it was a huge success, and we all smiled as we saw ourselves in the scene. Overall, the Park Armory program is something I’d do again, because it was the most fun I’ve ever had with anything.
Cynthia Luna-Marcelino
For the past month or so we were given the opportunity to have teaching artists Vickie and Shar from Park Avenue Armory come into our classroom and teach us about acting, stage presence, and improvising. During these lessons, we created scenarios which showcased a form of love. For these scenarios, students came up with taking selfies with their friends, playing games with friends, and showing kindness to homeless people. These scenarios would later be used to create one big performance.
But first we had to build and design our stage, and the students agreed that a subway train would be an excellent stage to showcase our little scenes of love. The teachers from the Armory then picked out seven scenarios that would fit the stage. I was first part of the artist group where we came up with designs that would cover the structure of the train making it more realistic. It was fun to draw for the whole class period as the activity was both relaxing and entertaining. Then I switched over to the structural side which focused on creating the train cab. This wasn’t as fun as the artist team since the structure was basically completed by the previous classes.
For me personally the most enjoyable experience was the last class with them, where we were put on the stage and acted our parts. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it even though I was nervous and anxious. It was a very unusual experience for me since we didn’t say a word but instead expressed as much as we could through actions. From this experience I was able to express myself more thoroughly through actions, and I feel like I could connect with a character more after this experience.
Thony Cielo
My thoughts on this activity we worked on with the Armory is that it was an unforgettable experience. This activity was so much fun and enjoyable which made class so unique and engaging. From meeting Vickie and Shar from our previous trip, getting the chance to act in class, building a setting of an MTA train station, and acting on it. I cannot forget this experience because of how much fun I had, along with the opportunity to have this extra class and how grateful I am because not a lot of schools have this experience. I hope many schools have a class to share creativity along with people working together. I hope in the future, many other students have this opportunity to act out and really come together to show creativity and make acting more known and can inspire students to be designers, actors, or planners for movies, music videos, or anyone who wants to be in the entertainment industry.
To start off, getting the opportunities to act in class was engaging and entertaining. In the beginning, I didn’t like the idea of acting in front of the whole class because I thought it would be awkward. However, after a couple of classes went by, I started getting comfortable and I was engaged, acting wasn’t as horrible as I had anticipated. Then, we started brainstorming as a class on what activities we should do during the act, and after brainstorming we knew what to do and rehearsed a little. At first it was a little strange to me because I didn’t have any clue of acting but once it was time to act, I felt like I blocked every noise and detail around me and did my part. After class, I felt like a whole different person. A few days of rehearsing and planning and we were going to build a set that took place on an MTA L train. It was really interesting and I was wondering, “How is this going to work?” but “Armory” has surpassed my expectations and once the next day of Armory came I saw a big building set we were going to use. I couldn’t believe we were building a set and how amazed I was when I saw the results. What I really liked about this project is that this creation brought out two types of people: the creative artists and the people who liked to build. It reminds me of a movie we were going to make because of how amazing it looked. Everyone made ads, and visualized what an actual MTA train station looked like along with the actors and myself. I can say for sure I had an amazing experience.
Jayden Belle
Love can be depicted in many ways. Helping someone in need, giving to those less fortunate, or a simple handshake. Park Avenue Armory is an organization that utilizes an actual armory to depict plays and art. The first time I went to the Armory, I got to see Alexander Zeldin’s play, “Love”. This was the first play I had seen and it blurs the lines between the audience and the actors on set.
I was surprised to hear that individuals from the Armory would be joining us throughout my semester, teaching us the different ways that love can be portrayed. I always thought that love is that burning desire for someone with whom you constantly spend time, but recently I found that love can be more than that.
One of our recent projects that left an impression on my heart was the creation of our train set. We took some time to construct a set that many of us would participate in acting out our version of Love. We had fun decorating many of the advertisements that you would see on a train and even some features such as the rails overhead. My group then acted out a negative encounter followed by a positive ending. Everyone had their own way of showing love. The diversity in ideas that we experience from day to day was depicted in sequences that were pleasing to the eye, from the simple friend greeting at the start of the act to giving money to someone in need. We all showcased what love meant to us.