New Theater Department Teacher Adjusts to Teaching at Newton South

By Abby Lass

It is second lunch on a Monday, and Ms. Perkinson sits at her desk in the Theater Office. Perkinson is the newest addition to the NSHS Theater Department’s staff, teaching sections of Public Speaking, Actor’s Workshop, Acting for the Stage and Screen, and ELL Drama and Speech -a new class focused on giving new English speakers the confidence to speak publicly and create characters. She does all this while in tech for a professional production of The Comedy of Errors.

This seems like a lot of work for anyone, especially for a first time high school teacher, but Perkinson insists it’s not too bad: “My day starts at eleven, which is really nice. I only teach classes in the afternoon.”

Perkinson has had practice organizing her schedule. After moving to the Boston area in 2005 to attend BU, which, according to Perkinson, “has one of the top three theater programs in the country… maybe top five- it’s debatable”, she has been teaching since 2009 at Edison Public School in Boston as well as giving private lessons.

These lessons range from directing short plays to musical theater intensives to Shakespeare workshops. Perkinson says that she “really like[s] classics.” Then went on to add, “Well, I like directing abstract pieces, but I prefer to act in classics, which is kind of a double standard.” Perkinson’s laugh fills the small office.

So how does working at a high school compare to working with kindergarten through fifth graders?  “It’s very different. South has facilities that are much more conducive to learning, and it’s so nice to be able to see my students twice a week. At Edison I saw my kids for fifty minutes once a week,” Perkinson said.

The production of The Comedy of Errors with Actor’s Shakespeare Project, in which Perkinson has several roles, is a big step up from the kwanza dances and dragon puppet shows she choreographed at Edison. The concept of her next show is perfect for fans of the television show “American Horror Story”’s newest season: side-show freaks telling the classic tale of mistaken identities.

Perkinson explains: “We have a fake program and a real program and everything. We’ve got these freaks telling the story. My freak name is Melissa Bigfoot, and I have these huge shoes. It’s really interesting to be an actor playing a character playing a character.” The Comedy of Errors opens at Brighton High School on September 24.

So is working at a high school a step down from all this excitement? Apparently not. “I love being back [in a high school]. I grew up in a theater program not unlike South Stage, and it’s great to be able to give back. I love to see all the young people getting ready for life,” Perkinson claims.

Any last word? “I don’t like it when people say ‘wait until real life’. This is your life. This is your real life and you’re living it.”