SO fun!

This post is from Haydee Thompson!      

We had a really great show this morning!  We are in Charlotte and just finished our first day of a four week residency at First Ward Elementary.  I LOVE this school!

You can tell by the bulletin boards and the art work on the walls that this school uses the arts fully to teach a standard curriculum. I appreciate the enthusiasm of the students and the teachers to our infiltration into the classroom, I sense they are open and excited to have us. 

We always start the week off with a performance in the mornings of our first day, and this morning's performance was tremendous, mostly due to the visceral reactions of our audience.  As a troupe it is a treat to hear our audience (the kids) react with laughs, gasps, applause, and in some cases shout outs!  So funny, SO fun!  Schools are chaotic but I really believe that when everyone comes together to watch a live performance we are all engaging in an expanded moment of mutual experience.  ODE is the talk of the campus as a shared and enriching happening!  What a treat to be a part of!

I Can't Wait!

This post is from the hilarious Haydee Thompson pictured here wailing as Weepish!

I can't wait, I can't wait! Monday we finally start our first week of residencies and I feel like what I hear expectant parents sometimes say. "I wonder what they will look/sound like. I wonder who they will become." Because I have been a teaching artist for so many years I know better than to generalize my students into just grades or age groups. They are dynamic persons with their own individual personalities, voices and ways of learning. Along the years I have met and taught so many wonderful children who have in turn taught me so much and I realize, just now, that some of my kids are in fact Juniors in High School this year! Crazy! I wonder what dreams they are preparing for currently. Do any of them want to be scientists? Maybe, just maybe, we have inspired an artist or two! There is a lump in my throat thinking about it. Have I made a difference? That hope is what keeps me coming back year after year and I just Can't Wait to meet them.

Photo Blog from Haydee!

Haydee Thompson is a widely and deeply talented woman. In addition to her work on stage, she is also a visual artist, musician, and photographer. These are some of the pictures Haydee took during Open Dream 2012. They give a glimpse to ODE-on-the-road including residency work, connecting with children, creative practice space, and what happens when a container of chocolate-covered espresso beans is left in a hot van. (I am happy to report that Cameron survived the caffeine-induced heart palpitations, insomnia, and increased gastric acid secretions).

I'm Peter

This post is from the fantastically versatile Haydee Thompson, pictured here as a pirate in Open Dream Ensemble's The Amazing Adventure of Anna Marie.

I'm PETER!!! In Peter and the Wolf with the W-S Symphony. Started rehearsal today. Pinching myself truly! This will be the largest band I have ever fronted. I was asked today if I have ever before played a "pants role". I have. I've professionally played a pirate and once, when I was 16, the Santa on the Hershey Park Trolley fell sick and I was, somehow, the most qualified around to cover his shift. I also played a bearded woman, but that really doesn't count. This role is less a "pants" challenge then an "age' challenge. Peter is a young boy and I'm playing him @ 7yrs. It is indescribable the magic that happens when you can dismiss the weight and worry of being an adult and, as your profession, get paid for the opportunity to escape into a child's brain and body. I have spent the past six years teaching and studying "a many hundred" kids while coasting upon, as well as directing, their worlds of imagination and wonder. Peter is a dream role and I hope an homage to all of them.

This Show RULES!

This post is from beautiful Haydee Thompson. She is pictured here as a cab driver in Open Dream's new show, Big Shoes.


This show RULES! Michaela Morton has not only crafted a beautiful work of theatre but I have had the pleasure working with her. The talented Michaela is also in the ensemble playing Deepish the philosophical ish sister and her casting is apropos, as she takes her part as actor and resident play write very seriously and it is an absolute joy to play in her world. This experience has been inspiring and so, in my 6th season in the ensemble, I am confident we have an amazing production on our hands and I can't wait to shoe this show to the kids!

Going Somewhere Extraordinary

This post from the sick Haydee -- we are hoping you feel better soon!!!


Staying healthy on the road isn't easy. Being around hundreds of children during the change of seasons on a fast food diet makes a perfect storm of illness. Julianne and I lay here in our hotel room which acts more like an infirmary with a myriad of tissue boxes, medicine bottles and immunity boosters, strewn about like a drugstore hurricane. She coughs I sneeze in time like an orchestrated duet, we have to laugh. At least we are sick together. There is nothing worse than living with a sick person when healthy or being sick around a healthy person for that matter.
The O.D.E. Season is wrapping up and I feel satisfied. We have definitely accomplished a mission. We set out on an incredible adventure and along the way met so many great people and made friends. Thank You to all the schools, teachers and students who welcomed us. Thank You to my fellow troupe mates for being so talented on stage and in the classroom. Thank You to Rebecca and The Open Dream Ensemble for letting us go "somewhere extraordinary "!


The photo is of Professor Poople from The Adventures of the Open Dream Ensemble.

Dirty Dishes and the Science Curriculum

This post is from the talented Haydee Thompson. When not studying science or doing dishes, Haydee is an actress with the Open Dream Ensemble. We are fortunate to have her as a member for the fifth year. This season she also takes up the post of Residency Manager.

So our first residency has ended and I am enjoying my first real weekend at home catching up on laundry and many other household chores.
We spent the last two weeks at Shuford Elementary in Conover NC. This year we are teaching the new science curriculum that will be in effect next school year.
Everyday, four different grades and four different science subjects, amounting to close to 40 separate lesson plans. PHEW! The troupe and I have a joke that if its not in the curriculum we just don't know. We had the pleasure of teaching everything from as far out as the universe to tiny seeds, and that was just the third grade. Add the water-cycle,
life-cycle, ecosystems, genetics, volcanoes, fossils, (the list does go on and on), and I find myself actually relearning a thing or two! The challenges were creating fun and effective experiential activities for each days focus. The reward was certainly the enthusiasm of the kids and the obvious learning and understanding that was apparent. It takes a lot of work to have fun, and although the dirty dishes in my sink might not think so, all this hard work is well worth it.

Breaking News

This post is from the fantastic Haydee Thompson. This is Haydee's fourth season with Open Dream Ensemble and she has played many roles for us including an abolitionist, a pirate, a mother, a mad hatter, a space-aged whiz kid, Katherine Wright (sister of the Wright brothers) a robot, and a human-variant of the goddess Demeter. She is pictured here taking a well-deserved break.


Unbelievable! Friday morning Julianne and I lead the drive to Stokes County in the Ryder truck. It was, of course, still dark as we were winding up the country hill when a giant fire ball shot across the sky! Julianne exclaimed something to the effect of, "HUNGRY HIPPO'S, LOOK AT THAT!!!!" It was HUGE and bright with all the colors of fire. "Is that a meteorite?", I said as it gently glided behind the tree line. I immediately grabbed my phone and found the number for local channel 12, WXII. They should know about this, it looked very close and we wondered where it might have hit. Unfortunately, after 20 rings, no one answered and I hung up. I then tried to find the number for FOX 8 morning news, after all, they interviewed ODE last month and Cindy Farmer should want to hear about this! Sadly, I couldn't find their number on their website anywhere so again No Luck! Oh well, I suppose I'll never know where that space rock landed. Nor will I ever know how to report breaking news.