1. Andrea Urquhart
4/9/12
Mrs. Corbet
4th period
Senior Speech
Hello, my name is Andrea Urquhart.Every kid grows up dreaming about what they will be: an
astronaut, a doctor, a rock star, or maybe an actress… Ever since I was just 11 years old and I got my first
role as Rapunzel in Into the Woods, acting has been my passion. Ever since then I have tried out for
every possible play/musical offered. I just love it. However, I am aware of the instability of that career
path so I have what you might call a backup plan: an occupational therapist. These two careers are very
unalike but for my senior project I found a way to bring them together to gain experience in both. I
wrote, directed and produced my very own play starring the special needs students at my school. This
brought about experience in acting in that I got to see the other side of a production. On the other hand,
this gave me experience in occupational therapy in that I used a tool, acting, to help those students gain
skills that will improve their life, such as communication skills and confidence. So for my paper I wrote
about how this whole process of involving the special needs students has given them those skills.
This whole process took many steps and held many obstacles, but with hard work and a great
facilitator I managed it all. First, I had to find that great facilitator. I ended up choosing my drama
teacher. His name is Mr. Matt Tamanini and like me, he acted all throughout his high school years in
school plays. I chose him for many different reasons. One being that he now directs every school play, so
I know that he would have a lot of experience in that area to help me direct one of my own. Another
reason being that I would get to see him every day if I needed advice, and I was able to spend more time

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in school working with the kids so that there were never any scheduling problems. Looking back, I know
I chose the right facilitator because of all of the help and experience he brought while I worked on my
project.
Next, after I chose my facilitator, I had to begin the long process of creating the production. My
first step was getting together my stage crew. There are eleven kids in my advanced drama class, so they
were the ones I assigned certain tasks to. They were the ones who moved set pieces on and off the
stage when necessary, and some of them even appeared on stage shortly as small characters, or helpers
for the kids in case they ever forgot a line. The next step was to write the script. I based the play off of
the popular children’s movie Toy Story 2. The reason I chose this was because after meeting with the
kids we all decided that that was their favorite movie and would be the perfect set up for a play. It
created an opportunity for the perfect amount of characters and just an overall fun and happy storyline.
The hardest part about writing the script is that I wrote it specifically for that group of kids. After
meeting with their teacher we discussed who would be best for each character and how many lines each
would be able to handle. The next step was giving the kids the script and rehearsing it. Since the play
was specified for them, each kid got something that challenged them so I often worked with some
individually. After a few months of rehearsing, we finally got to a point where the kids knew where to go
and what to say. The next step in the process was to get the set, costumes, and lighting together. I
personally set all of the lights for the show, and even was the one working them in the performance.
The set came together when I made a sketch of what I wanted and people brought in tons of stuff that
we could use, and we even had to build some of the stuff by hand with the help of an experienced
carpenter. The costumes came together in almost the same way: many people helped donate, some of
the costumes were made and some had to be purchased. After all of that came together, the only thing

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left to do was perform the play. We performed it a total of two times, the first time was specifically for
the other special needs students in the county while the other was for anyone who was interested. The
best part of the performances would probably be seeing the kids up there having the time of their lives;
it was such a transformation from their first time reading it. Another great thing was that that
performance held the biggest crowd our theatre had seen. Overall, after taking all of those steps, the
play came together to be more that any of us expected. It was such a hit for everyone that they are now
thinking of making it a tradition for the special needs students to perform a play once a year.
At the same time, while I managed to get it all done, I did come across obstacles along the way.
One of the biggest obstacles would be fitting in time with the kids. We only had two months to do all of
this and I only got to meet with the kids three times a week for an hour. With this short amount of time I
had to get a lot done as fast as possible, and make sure every kid was making progress each week. Also,
some of them were not able to be at school some of those days, so I didn’t get to have much time with
some of the kids. One of them I only got to see about four times before we performed it. Another
obstacle I faced would be getting the kids to memorize the script. Some of them had a hard time
focusing so it took extra time with them to figure out how to get them to memorize it. This is when I
decided to start working with the kids in either small groups or by themselves. With the help of my stage
crew working with the kids sometimes as well, I was able to overcome that obstacle. So even though
there were those obstacles and some others, I was able to come out with a final product that I could not
be more proud of.
In conclusion, everything may not have gone according to plan but I would say that my senior
project was a huge success. And throughout that process I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I
could use more patience and hold a little more authority when a situation calls for it. Most importantly, I

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learned that if I really put my mind to something I can accomplish it. I also learned about my work
habits. I always used to put everything off until last minute, but this project showed me that sometimes
you can’t do that, and when you don’t the work quality is ten times better. Also, I learned what my true
career interest is: acting. As much as I liked the idea of occupational therapy, this project showed me
that my passion is on the other side of the whole production. So in college, I plan to major in the
dramatic arts and minor in something steadier if things don’t go as planned. All in all, my senior project
has taught me so much and was so much fun, and the product was something I will always be proud of.