Danielle Miller, known by her students as simply “Miller,” has been teaching theater at Hoboken High School for six years. Her classroom looks like it would fit in an art school campus. The black walls are decorated with Greek masks and various medals won by her actors. Instead of rows of desks, her students sit in a circle talking about the details of a scene. Adding to the collegiate vibe is the way that Miller asks them for their opinions. Theater is a collaborative effort in Miller’s classroom.

“They’re extremely mature young adults,” Miller says. The teenagers help fill her many roles as a theater teacher. “I’m director, I’m producer, making the fliers, sticking to the budget, set designer, costumes, my hand is in every pot,” she says. “I have to delegate.”

The close bond, engendered by this collaborative style, means that many alumni come back to mentor current students or help with plays.

“I actually just hired two of them to be production assistants,” she said. “They all come back.”

The theater program has two big shows each year. One is the high-school musical; the other is a district show that is open to students in all Hoboken public schools. Last year more than 150 students from kindergarten through 12th grade tried out.

Miller’s high school students are role models for the little kids.

“In Beauty and the Beast we had our Chip being played by a second grader,” recalls junior, Dave Rivera. “He was the liveliest kid that you would ever meet.” Adds junior Ivelisse Lorenzo, “And he was the loudest singer. He was the best singer. He was amazing.” Rivera says, “He would come in, and even if you were having the worst day ever you would leave smiling.”

“He was definitely a trouper too,” says Hannah Mack, Drama Club president. “The costume that he had to be in was a big tray table. He had to sit in a really uncomfortable position for the whole show, and he did not complain. It’s really cool to see how children put as much effort into the shows as we do because they love being a part of it.”

“His parents told me that he had been having a really hard year at school, because he wasn’t doing well at sports,” Miller says. “The play really helped him.”

The Drama of Life

Miller believes that theater, or any of the arts, benefits students of all ages.

“What’s great about theater education is that I am not here just to create Broadway actors, though some of them are talented enough that they could be a contender if they wanted,” Miller says. “It’s teaching them teamwork, collaboration, self-confidence, and public speaking skills. In any job out there in the world they’re going to need those skills.”

Theater enhances self-knowledge. “A creative outlet allows them to discover new things about themselves,” Miller says. “It allows them to be confident no matter what they look like, no matter their sexual orientation or what their family life is like. They get to really feel proud about something that they do.”

Miller’s Thespians Competition Team is especially proud of performing at the International Thespian Festival in Nebraska last year. The team has had a few students who qualified to go individually over the years, but this was the first time that all 14 students won. To qualify for the international fest, they first had to win at the New Jersey Thespians Festival.

“Last year I found this play called Almost Maine,” Miller says. “It’s set in this made-up town, and it’s about the people who live in this 200-people town. These characters are dealing with the most powerful thing that we all deal with in life, which is love. Every scene is a completely different relationship, some finding love, some losing love, some realizing they have to love themselves. Some are comedic, some dramatic.”

She went on, “We performed that last year in Nebraska, and we won first place. It was so exciting.” The Hoboken School District funded the Nebraska trip because the entire team won for the play, instead of individual kids winning awards for best actor or best supporting actor.

At press time, the club was fundraising to support this year’s trip to Nebraska, which costs about $1,700 per student. The fest includes plays and workshops, so they will attend even if they don’t win the New Jersey event.

Art is for Math Geeks, Too

Miller, who is the president of the Speech and Theatre Association of New Jersey, created an event that gives all local students a similar experience. “We host Hudson County Theatre Day every year in January, where every public school in Hudson County comes to Hoboken, and students get to take four workshops with professionals in the field for free,” Miller says. “Since we are so close to the city we have been able to form many relationships with professional actors and playwrights.”

Miller feels she lucked out in her job teaching theater, which she refers to as “art.” “I just love teaching art in this town,” she says. “Our program is really strong, but that’s not the case all across the state, and it’s getting worse and worse as the years go on. I’m a big advocate for trying to mainstream the importance of art in every subject and every classroom.”

She teaches a professional-development workshop that shows teachers how to bring theater games and exercises into classes like math or history. “New Jersey only requires one class of art in high school for you to be able to graduate, and I think that it should be one per year,” Miller says. “Art teachers like myself want to push for more because art affects everything else. Students who take art have higher GPAs, and they’re more likely to graduate from a four-year college. I love to go to other schools and say, ‘Bring art into all of the classrooms, and this is how you do it.’”—07030