Briarwood Elementary robotics team visits SKyPAC for ‘Behind the Curtains’ tour

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - Sixth graders with the Briarwood Elementary School robotics team spent Thursday morning at SKyPAC learning about all the different aspects of creating a show at the theater company.

The concept was started as a way to provide educational groups with a look into what goes on behind the scenes during SKyPAC’s productions on stage and how the company puts on its shows.

The program is part of SKyPAC’s ‘Behind the Curtains’ Tour and is fairly new, with only one other group visiting since its creation.

“We’re doing our second run of this for a public school here. The first public school was about a month ago and it was the robotics team. The second today is for another robotics team. So we have been able to kind of regurgitate that information, but it isn’t a different setting,” said SKyPAC Education Director, Dillon Godolphin.

The experience is personalized for each of the groups that visit, in an educational and fun way.

“The initial thought might be, ‘Oh, just be great to see what’s behind the stage,’ ” Godolphin said, “but how does that connect to maybe your curriculum, what your plans are, the careers that the group might want to be involved with, or see, or know the people who are actually in the career that get to make those connections as well?”

SKyPAC Technical Assistant, Patrick Duncan said the most challenging part of creating the program has been trying to make each presentation fit the group that visits.

“It’s been fun kind of thinking about what would be exciting for students and there’s definitely been some things that we found they were a lot more interested in, and that we weren’t necessarily anticipating,” Duncan said, “and then other things that we kind of glossed over for the next time.”

The program started with the students sitting in the theater for a presentation on theater safety and the things that go into the creation of lighting and sounds.

After the presentation, they were able to go up onto the stage to interact and try out all of the different things they saw themselves, and create their own short production.

“We got to pick our own, like music and like props,” Briarwood sixth grader, Hedson Wisc said. “My favorite part was when you got to do the voices.”

If you want to participate in SKyPAC’s ‘Behind the Curtain’ Tour, visit theskypac.com or contact Dillon Godolphin at DGodolphin@artsofsky.org.

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