Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Resolute Bay (Dec 06/99) - If things go according to plan, the dramatic voices of Qarmartalik high school students will soon go out over the airwaves in the High Arctic.

It's just a matter of waiting for the necessary copyright approval to come through and then it's all systems go for a series of four radio plays produced and recorded by Resolute Bay youth.

To get her drama students comfortable with all that is involved with acting and theatrical productions, teacher Kelly Giesbrecht came up with a plan.

"It was the first time our school had drama. As an introduction, we tackled radio plays before stage plays because I didn't want the students to shy away from it because they were too shy to speak in front of people," said Giesbrecht.

"Building up to that by speaking into a tape recorder was a good introduction," she said.

The exercise, which was more successful than Giesbrecht even hoped for, taught the 20 Grade 9-12 students voice training and control as well as the finer points of editing and group work.

"They really enjoyed it. They got an appreciation of what they could accomplish," she said.

That is precisely what her drama partner, Lorne Adamitz, had in mind when he got involved.

An RCMP officer, Adamitz stressed the need to boost the self-esteem of the youth in his community and to keep them busy and out of trouble.

"I'm looking at developing self-esteem to let the youth realize they have potential and to explore new horizons and thus gain confidence. Now there is an understanding of what they can do," said Adamitz, who tried unsuccessfully last year to involve some of the students in theatre.

Realizing they were too shy for the stage, he sent away for the table plays and together with Giesbrecht, the pair went to work.

Assigning groups of five to a different play each, the school put together productions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Cyrano de Bergerac, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Frankenstein. The productions lasted for 30 minutes and it was up to each group to ensure they developed a script that would fit into the allotted time.

Adamitz said the students learned many skills, but of particular interest were the lessons they learned in creating sound effects.

In order to recreate the sounds of horses trotting, crowds of people murmuring and footsteps crunching the snow, the students experimented and came up with some great ideas.

"We were trying to create visual imagery through sounds and the students were surprised at what can be achieved," he said.

For Solomon Idlout, the sound effects were the best part of the two-month project, but he also noted that he had enjoyed the overall experience.

"I sort of feel proud," said Idlout.

"I learned some new skills like using my voice differently, talking, changing it."

Jeffrey Kheraj, a student who took on the role of Frankenstein, immensely enjoyed his foray into theatre and said he thought more stage work was in his future.

Also happy that his community members would have something new to listen to on the radio in the near future, Kheraj took his acting and his dedication to his role a step further.

"I watched the movie to help me get into my character. It helped," he said.

As for the future of the rest of the drama students, Giesbrecht said the next step in January was to get her class to begin writing their own scripts with the goal of a video production in mind, a project Adamitz said he was looking forward to.

"I'm sure the students will tie in their culture and history and we want to encourage that."