Creating “Dandelion Magic,” and Other Adventures in Young People’s Theater

Jun 16, 2025

Three Innovative Theater-Based Projects for this Year’s Grants for Performing Arts Teachers’ Program Brings Together Students and Audiences from Different Lived Experiences

Like many educators, Bowie High School Performing Arts Teacher Kelsey Meiklejohn Bowen pulls inspiration for her student projects from personal experiences. The Prince George’s County, MD teacher received a Grant for Performing Arts Teachers earlier this year from Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts to fund the development of a children’s theater project for her drama class, one of three theater-based projects funded by this year’s grants program.

Dandelion Magic, written by Darren Farrell, is a favorite children’s book of Bowen’s daughter. It tells the story of a young boy, Jonah, and his grandmother, who introduces to him the idea of magical dandelions that grow once a year and grant wishes to whoever finds them. Bowen thought that the central idea of the story–that magic is in our imaginations–might make a compelling theme for a Theater for Young Audiences project.

“[My students] liked the story’s emphasis on imagination and the idea of creating something from nothing or, simply, from a wish,” said Bowen.

Bowen’s grant enabled her to bring in teaching artist Ryan Sellers, who had experience bringing Theater for Young Audience projects to life on stage. Sellers helped facilitate the experience for Bowen’s students, who wrote the script and “led the charge.”

“My job was to help them refine their physical imagery and movement sequences to enable them to clarify and polish the story they wanted to tell,” he said.

Students turned to Maya Tatsukawa’s illustrations for inspiration. They applied a “found materials” approach to the overall aesthetic, creating a world where Jonah’s imagination drove the narrative. To form an octopus, they used a traffic cone for the head and connected pool noodles to portray its tentacles, they maneuvered long pieces of cloth on stage to simulate ocean waves and pieced together cardboard to form Jonah’s pirate ship.

Lighting also played a part in the portrayal of story elements and scene transition: the actor playing Jonah held up a giant dandelion that was illuminated so that it shone against a dark backdrop, drawing the attention of the audience; students acting as puppet and prop masters dressed in dark clothes and maneuvered about the stage to transform the set pieces.

Students also tried to be mindful of what was developmentally appropriate for their audience and what children aged 2-5 would find engaging.

“They crafted ways to introduce the monsters that would be surprising but not scary,” said Bowen, “jokes that would keep the kids entertained, and responsive opportunities in dialogue that leaned on the script more as guideposts for the narrative and action versus a prescriptive text.”

The Bowie students traveled the production to early childhood centers in Prince George’s County to perform during their storytime and also staged the play at their school and for Bowen’s fellow grantees and their students at Wolf Trap Grants Day. Bowen is most proud of the collaborative nature of the project, the creativity shown by her students, and the fact that each of her students was able to play a role.

A Multigenerational Project

Two-time grantee Corinne Fox, a performing arts teacher at Potomac Falls High School in Loudoun County, VA, used Arthur Miller’s All My Sons as the basis for her grants project. Her students read through the play the previous year as an exercise, and Fox was surprised when they expressed a desire to stage the play as a production because she did not expect its post-World War II setting to resonate so strongly with them.

Students met with local veterans who helped the students understand the issues they had faced upon their return home from combat and the impact that had on their interpersonal relationships and communities. Fox brought in a teaching artist who used the Michael Chekhov method to help the Potomac Falls students learn to embrace characters with vastly different life experiences from their own.

“I personally love the art of storytelling,” said Fox. “I love finding the complexities in characters and helping students learn more about who they are as people, and how they can become better world citizens by analyzing flawed characters and human dynamics. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch students mature and evolve as they learn more about the world around them through the medium of theater.” 

Building Bridges Through Theater

Returning grantee Hope Lambert, from H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in Arlington County, VA, used her grant to create Building Bridges, a cooperative theater project with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Program, a middle and high school program serving students with special needs.

“For the past couple of years, I had been thinking about how I might make a connection between the theater we do at H-B and the Shriver program. Up until now, we have performed improv-based sketches and one-acts for Shriver students but hadn’t yet been able to facilitate a shared production,” said Lambert.

“Gaining a sense of community, being a part of a fun and engaging rehearsal, getting a laugh from the audience, facing challenges together, experiencing the thrill of performing in front of a live audience, [those are] life-changing moments that are available to my students, [and] I really hoped that we could share those experiences with the Shriver students,” she added.

Lambert partnered with Scott Shepherd, Shriver’s music teacher, who was excited to offer the Shriver students a chance to participate in a play, give them the ability to explore something new and challenging, and celebrate the talents and accomplishments of the Shriver students with their parents in the audience.

Lambert incorporated a teaching artist into the project to help her H-B students learn how to write and stage a theater production that was accessible to students with special needs. The students chose to develop a script based on Into the Woods, aptly titled, A Mini Into the Woods. Once the script was completed, the H-B students were paired with the Shriver students and mentored them throughout the production process.

At Grants Day, H-B student Josie Funk, who served as stage manager for the play, remarked how much the H-B class enjoyed learning how theater can be used as a learning tool [for different audiences] and sharing their love for the performing arts with other students.

“It is an honor to be a part of this project,” said Funk, “especially because I believe that together we can develop a passion for theater and offer the opportunity to share the spotlight with our friends at Shriver through performance.”

This year’s class of recipients also includes dance, music, and performance projects from Chelsea Holmes (Sterling Middle School), Destini Collins (Browne Education Campus), Dr. Faye Richie-Chandler (Friendship Armstrong Public Charter School), Kristen Friend (Mercer Middle School), Dr. NiLa Austin (Ida B. Wells Middle School), Rebecca Svedin Tate (Kenmore Middle School), Sophie Rosenthal (Swanson Middle School), Stacey M. Jones (Luther Jackson Middle School), Dr. CJ Redden-Liotta (Falls Church High School), Courtney Betzel (West Potomac High School Academy), and Kendra Smith (John F. Kennedy High School).

Applications for this year’s grants program are open now until Wed., Oct. 1. To apply visit wolftrap.org/grants.