"A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest (2022)

Actor Lynn Robert Berg greets and awards a
writing contest school winner on stage
at the Mimi Ohio Theatre.

Since 1989, Great Lakes Theater has produced a writing contest for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, in association with the annual production of Gerald Freedman’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

This past season was my tenth year shepherding the program, which involves engaging English Language Arts teachers throughout the district to participate in the program, contracting the readers who will choose the most original and creative works from the written entries, and making arrangements for all participating students to attend one of two free student matinees of the production.

The past two holidays seasons have been disheartening, to say the least, as there was no stage production of A Christmas Carol in 2020 (though GLT did produce an excellent radio adaptation that year) and while the show went on in 2021, the fact that vaccinations were not yet available to students twelve and younger made student matinees untenable.

The writing contest continued, however. But with remote instruction and without the promise of matinees for students, participation was depressed, which is entirely understandable. For me, however, it was one more of a raft of disappointments during a very difficult period.



In order to revive interest in the contest this year, GLT offered writing workshops to any teachers interested in receiving them. This past fall I conducted twenty such hour-long workshops at schools across the city. While exhausting (and taxing on my voice) it was very inspiring to be able to make a direct connection with so many students – in person – and to engage them in the craft of creative writing.

Here’s the thing; I always wanted to write. When I was a child, I wrote. But my efforts were never promoted. They were never fostered. Not by my parents, and my efforts were outright derided by my brothers’ friends. There was always someone to tell me what I was doing wrong, no one took me aside to show me how to do it right. It took me a long time before I realized it was something I could do. Someone I could be.



In these workshops, there wasn’t a lot of time to cover structure, apart from the basics. What we did was brainstorm, create characters with motivations inspired by themes present in Dickens’ work. When a student offered up a character, I would ask questions about who they were, and where they were, and what they – the character – wanted. And then I asked them to write about that for a few minutes, then we would go further.

When all the entries were submitted, and six grand prize winners were chosen from over a thousand written entries, five of the six had participated in one of these writing workshops. But so many of the stories were so well written this year, whether they had received a workshop or not. Stories about love and acceptance, and grief and anger, about loss and doubt but also confidence and hope.



These kids, my kids, all of our kids, have been through so much these past years, and there is all this talk about how they are behind, in their education and in their socialization. But reading these stories, and hearing their voices as they reacted to a live performance at those student matinees of A Christmas Carol, I see so many strong, resilient, and thoughtful young people.

Read the Grand Prize Winning Stories from the 34th Annual Great Lakes Theater "A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest (2022)

The Bully of Baker Street: Week One

Oliver Hazard Perry Elementary

The tour has been on the road for one week. Today the acting company had an entire day off, and like true Millennials they spent it working double shifts at their designated restaurants and ride sharing.

In the past week they had three public performances and six schools. This week they will have three public performances and eight schools. It’s a big job, load-in and putting up the set, performing the show, tearing it down and heading to a second site to do it all again. They are professionals, and they’re each doing such excellent work.

Response has been very positive. We provide evaluations to teachers at school and each of our adult audience members at public venues.

In response to the question, what did you like most about the production, many teachers responded along these lines:

• The way the characters connected with the students during the Q & A following the play.
• The interactive aspect of the play and the period costumes and sets.
• The message and the way it was delivered through theater!

Talespinner Children's Theatre
Photo by Liz Steward

And the message is getting through. Following the post-show discussion led by the acting company at our first performance at a Cleveland Metropolitan School, the Curriculum Instruction Specialist took a moment to address the students. She asked specific questions about the choices the characters in the play made, which communicated to me how closely she had followed the story.

She summed up by reminding the students, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

When asked what they liked least about the production, I did hear this comment more than once:

• May have been a bit over the head of some of our K and 1st

I admit, this may be true. However, when the student audience includes higher grades, the response from the older kids appears to clue the younger ones in on developments they might otherwise miss.

Pioneer Drama Service
(Published 2021)

Most remarkable was the teacher who reported that they took materials found in the teacher resource guide -- the Arthur Conan Doyle biography, the “biography” of Sherlock Holmes, and my own playwright’s notes about my youthful experiences with the detective -- to create her own “Cliff’s Notes” chronology tracing the artistic synthesis from the Victorian era to that day’s performance of our production.

She made this for third graders! I want to get a copy of that. Public reaction has also been very good, with audience members praising the, “excellent actors,” and the period costumes and music. They like the “audience interaction” and “the ‘choose your own adventure’ aspect” of the play script.

Also, kids are surprised to learn that the woman playing Miss Barnaby is also the artist lady!

My favorite comment so far was from the guy at the Heights Library whose favorite part was Vicky “calling out Sherlock on his BS.”

To be continued.

UPDATE: "Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street" is now available from Pioneer Drama Service

Top Ten Moments of 2019

At the devastating conclusion of 2016, I pointed up ten moments from the year which made it worth living, because there needs to be something. The past few months have been spent coping with great anxiety over my mother’s health, and there is yet much to remember and to celebrate about 2019.

1. "Spamilton"

The girl and I went to the Hanna the day after New Year’s to enjoy Gerard Alessandrini’s parody of Hamilton, which was delightful in its low-budget aesthetic, fast pace and cheap jokes. If you aim at a king you must kill him, and it was the versatile comic abilities of the performers which kept us in stitches.

Though my daughter got all the Hamilton references, I did have to help her out a little with the more obscure musical theater references. And by obscure I mean Liza. The kids don’t know Liza.

2. "Witness for the Prosecution"

There are a few non-speaking roles in Agatha Christie’s courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution and I was asked by Great Lakes Theater to appear as a barrister for a small number of student matinee performances, the very first of which was for an audience of mostly middle school students.

They sat surprisingly silent throughout this sixty-six year-old drama, and we were all shocked and delighted when the place erupted during the final five minutes as Christie revealed first the first verdict, then one twist upon another. It was a unique experience you can only get from live theater.


3. “Awareness” (short film)

This spring I had the privilege of mentoring a New East Tech High School student in creating a public health play script. Actually, it was originally slated to be a live performance, then the screenplay for a short film. The student is a poet, with a great sense of style and humor, and mostly I shared with her what I saw, what I felt was missing, which moments were better reported and which dramatized.

Checking in every other week, she wrote very fast (and on her phone, no less) arranged table readings with her classmate and oversaw the production of the final video product.

4. Melissa & Patrick’s Wedding

My wife and I attended a stunning destination wedding in New Orleans, which was delightful and romantic in so many ways. We once visited the Crescent City together, over twenty years ago, and there is no one I would rather travel with, she is my soulmate in tourism. Also, it was a delight to participate in a richly fantastic Millennial nuptial composed of so many of my theater and actor-teacher colleagues.

5. Women’s World Cup

For feminists (and those who love them) it has been the best of times, the worst of times. But the best moments can be spectacular, like Megan Rapinoe and the utter dominance of Team USA in the Women’s World Cup. You could catch us most matches at a huge, full table at Heights Grill, people by members of the high school team, their coaches and families.

And you would know us by my wife’s mauve do.

6. College Visits

Twice this summer I joined the girl in investigating colleges and universities, first in NYC and then in Providence. It was a joy, stealing this opportunity to spend one-on-one time with my daughter in new places, trying new restaurants, watching her take extensive notes on what she’s discovered.

7. School of Rock presents "American Idiot"

My son was introduced to Green Day early and they are the bedrock of his rock and roll education. I took him to see the Broadway tour of American Idiot at the Palace Theatre when he was nine, and the Beck Center production a year later (Beck’s was better) and when he was cast in the American Idiot show at his chapter of School of Rock I may have been more excited than he was.

8. Crossing the City

I have run from my house to my parents house a few times, at least once each time I have trained for a marathon. This year I did it twice, the second time with my son. He was riding, I was running. It was a hot day, the last ten miles were grueling (much like the race itself) but having the opportunity to share the experience, the city, my training, four hours together making our way from Cleveland Heights to Lakewood, we had an adventure.

9. Mike Doughty plays "Ruby Vroom"

I’m not actually the kind of father who pushes his artistic interests onto his children. No, really. But we have also exposed them to an awful lot of what we like, which is nearly everything. So I believe they have come to their tastes organically.

Making her mark at the Smiling Skull Saloon.

Having said that, the boy has also been a huge Soul Coughing fan and when Mike Doughty announced he was touring the twenty-fifth anniversary of their first album Ruby Vroom I thought that was a father-son experience not to be missed.

Falling as it did this fall in the midst of great emotional turmoil, listening to Doughty and his band conduct a faithful recreation of the album live was surprisingly affecting to me, a stark reminder of my young adulthood. I may have cried (I didn’t actually cry.)

10. Christmas in Athens

It’s been hard. It continues to be hard. But I am so grateful to my brother Henrik for returning from England -- for the second time in two months -- so that one of mother’s boys were home for the holiday, affording me this opportunity to be with Toni’s family in Athens, if only for a couple days.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, best wishes for the New Roaring Twenties.

Recording A Christmas Carol Writing Contest

During the Great Education Department Realignment of 2013, one responsibility that I had earned was to shepherd the quarter-century established "A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest. Middle school aged city of Cleveland school kids are invited to write poems, stories and essays, inspired by themes present in Charles Dickens' classic work.

Great Lakes Theater collaborates with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to provide all participating students free tickets and transportation to attend a matinee performance of A Christmas Carol, and students whose work was singled out by their teachers are called on stage, by name, receive commemorative T-shirts, get to meet actors from the company, and receive applause and the supportive cheers of their classmates.

It is a pretty sweet event. And it means that beginning in August, I have already started thinking of the holidays, contacting every single CMSD middle school English language arts teacher to encourage their participation in the event.

In case you are wondering, that is almost seventy schools. I have a pretty decent system going now, making phone calls, sending PDFs by email, and more often than not, communicating by fax. Yes, I know.

There are also six grand prize winners, who receive special gifts, a booklet including their work, and a special evening for they, their parents and teachers to attend an evening performance. These students' work is chosen from all of the school winners from a panel of judges composed of members of the GLT education staff, and close supporters of the company.

Laura Welsh Berg

Last year, we added a new component to the contest. In collaboration with Great Lakes, WCPN 90.3 FM ideastream produced a special holiday broadcast of Sound of Applause, one in which host Dee Perry interviews the students and actors from the A Christmas Carol company read their stories.

Now, some of the stories these kids write are really very good, and last year I was loath to edit them for time. This was a mistake, as recording the stories took several recording sessions spread out over a couple afternoons. Our actors just came off two solid weeks of rehearsal and the last thing I wanted to do was tax them on their first week after opening the show.

Having said that, they were incredible generous and excited about this new program, and the reaction from the students, hearing these talented performs interpret their work, was that of complete delight.

This year I was a bit more aggressive in editing. This was not an easy thing to do, as these middle school writers' creative, original and expressive use of language is a large part of what makes the work so exciting to read. But a booklet of their unabridged works will be available to read on the Great Lakes Theater website soon, and I do feel I was able to cut the work without sacrificing each student's unique voice.

We recorded one story two weeks ago. Today we recorded the other five in about an hour, total. Many deeply felt thanks to Aled, Betsy, Jodi, Laura, Lynn, M.A. and Sara for their time and great talent. The broadcast will be next Monday at 2 pm and 10 pm on WCPN 90.3 FM. Check back for links and more info.