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Inside The Classroom:
Acting Out with Katie Glick '85

Middle School theater teacher Katie Glick ’85

Most former students remember their first all-nighter before a big test, and the bleary-eyed nerves that accompany the next day. It’s not a practice typically endorsed by teachers, but today in the Middle School Big Room, theater teacher Katie Glick is bucking the trend. 

“Jett’s going to pull an all-nighter to research his character—it’s okay, it will be the day before winter break so he won’t mess up his schedule,” Glick says.  “Although we should probably warn his other teachers…” 

Jett Oristaglio ’13 is playing the lead character in This is a Test by Stephen Gregg, a one-act play about a student faced with a harrowing test taking experience after having been talked into an all-nighter by a friend.  While the idea of Oristaglio pulling an actual all-nighter came from the class, Glick, in her colorful teaching style, embraced it.

“Drama class is a real reprieve for students from the pressures they are starting to feel everywhere else at this age,” Glick says.  “If they have an idea that has merit or can be fun, I try to go with it.”

Beyond fun, applying real life situations to acting can allow students to discover insights in their daily lives. 

“I’m having Thomas (Hislop ’13) study history teacher Gabe Mejail outside of class to help him understand his teacher character in the play—we warned Gabe not to be alarmed if he notices Thomas staring at him a lot in his history class,” Glick says laughing.  “It’s an interesting exercise because students at this age have trouble perceiving teachers outside of class—thinking of them as real people.”

Pacing the room with a feather boa around her neck and a wooden cane in hand (both props from a previous show), Glick’s energy and excitement in class are contagious for students.  Her mind is on any number of subjects at once—keeping track of lines, stage directions, visual and musical cues, student assignments—all the while keeping a steady flow of dialogue running:

“Which side should your backpack be on? Close the curtain all the way! Thank you, thank you, quiet back stage...Wait! Think about where your eyes should be, in a real classroom they wouldn’t be staring at me. You’re getting sucked upstage, sucka! Okay, cue the music, and…go.”

Glick’s 7th and 8th grade classes clearly respond to her lively style, throwing out their own ideas, and flourishing in her free-flowing classroom. Even those students whose passions might lie outside of acting seem to relax and enjoy the rehearsal—a fact that Glick can appreciate as a teacher with multiple interests.

As a student Glick loved athletics too but was continually told she had to pick between acting and sports. Remedying this dilemma was a big factor in leading Glick to teaching.

“People always told me you can’t do both. I never agreed…I coach junior varsity volleyball and middle school lacrosse, and I love it as much as acting,” says Glick.  “I always encourage kids to pursue anything they’re passionate about. Even it means they have to miss a class for some other outside activity. If they love it, I think it has value.”

As a graduate of BB&N, Glick has strong ties to the school she first entered as a third grader at the Buckingham Street campus.  She remembers current Middle School History Chair Bill Rodgers fondly as her homeroom teacher, the smell of the Sparks Street building (“it still smells the same”), and her first foray into acting as enticed by current Upper School theater teacher Mark Lindberg.

“My junior year he walked by me in the hallway and said, ‘Hey Kate, why don’t you audition for The Threepenny Opera…the worst thing that can happen is you make a complete fool out of yourself, which you do every day anyway.’ He totally had me nailed, and that was my start in theater.”

Even before coming to BB&N as a teacher, Glick combined her acting passion with education, working for a non-profit organization and performing a one-woman show called The Yellow Dress.  The play focused on a difficult topic, dating violence, and she completed over 137 performances at high schools throughout the country—the well-acclaimed play often left audiences shocked and moved.

When she settled on teaching Middle School, the transition was a smooth one.

“I try to shine a light on the choices they make in everyday life,” Glick says of her students.  “Also at their age, they start being told they’re wrong—they don’t make a team, they don’t get the answers on their math test correct, their bodies are starting to act weird. In my class, I tell them that nothing they do is ‘wrong’, everything is just a learning process.”