Urban Connections

Brattle Theater Partnership

Zoe Balaconis, US English Teacher

For my Urban Connections Grant I worked with the education and outreach staff at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square. It's such a community gem, and in previous years, I had been shocked to hear many students hadn't been there, hadn't heard of it, or hadn't been to a movie theater ("why? everything's online!"). As all ninth-graders do, mine were reading The Odyssey in the fall. To introduce the story, we talk about the concept of the epic, master narratives, and myths across time and cultures. 

   

One connection that nearly always comes up even without my prompting is Star Wars. The connections between Odysseus' journey and the Star Wars universe are plentiful, and it gives us a nice touchstone to discuss archetypes we'd encounter: the reluctant hero, the old sage, the questing crew...and all taking place in this world like ours, but imbued with the mythical and the mystical. Thinking back on these conversations, I reached out to Ivy Moylan, the Brattle's executive director. I proposed a field trip with my class where we'd go to the theater during our class -- just us -- tour the theater, hear about the elements of the epic in Star Wars, watch A New Hope, then have a discussion before heading back to school. She loved the idea, and had Ned Hinkle, their creative director put together a program for us. He greeted us at the door, showed us around, asked the students about their learning so far and helped us generate a list of things to watch for in the film, then watched it with us! It was so fun being in the theater all alone -- everyone was spread out -- talking was encouraged -- reactions were hilarious -- and we really bonded as a class. After, we had an excellent discussion of the staying power of stories and the influence narratives can have on a generation, a culture. All in all, it was a memorable trip, and it was wonderful for the Brattle to make it possible. I think all the students were surprised to find that it was "so close by!" And they all were told they could come back any time free of charge to any showings. 

        

After that trip, I made two more: one with the BB&N Comedy Club to a special Monty Python event at the Brattle, which was hilarious; the second with a group of about fifteen students to a showing of The Labyrinth, which about 3/4 had never seen, and who were honestly shocked and amazed and loving the bizarreness of it ("is this what the past was like?"). 

All of these trips have been due to the connections I made to the staff there -- prompted by this grant! I'm hoping to continue to take advantage of this neighborhood resource and try to tap into more of what our culturally rich location has to offer.