Senior Project PROJECT

Now that the Research Papers (in some cases the Research Paper Rough Drafts) are in, it's time to focus on the PROJECT portion of Senior Project. Most of the students know exactly what they will do, and the rest will concretize their idea within the next day or so. During the last month, I created a project that I think would have flown had I been a student.

Theater has always been one of my passions, and part of any successful show is the Playbill. This publication---- besides giving the information about the show, the actors, the supporters, and advertisers ---- is part of theater culture.

I saw opportunity to plan, design, and produce the playbill from scratch, so I took it.

I first gathered playbills from other schools, and looked at the books given to me during performances at the Walnut Street Theater. Since I particularly impressed with the one from Cherry Hill West (Bye, Bye, Birdie), I tracked down the teacher who created it and asked him questions, and he revealed to me that he used Microsoft Publisher to create it, a program I had never used before.

I spent lots of time doing the legwork to acquire the program and much more time teaching myself how to use it.

Creating the program took me easily 50 cumulative hours, NONE OF WHICH WERE SPENT DURING THE SEMINAR CLASS. I devoted several hours over a few weekends doing it, and grabbed a few hours during my teacher prep time, as well as time after school. The time spent was not a chore; I had fun doing it.

I had the deadline looming over my head, and I knew that I had to adhere to it and deliver a quality product. Of course, nobody was grading me for this, and nobody needed to. I wanted to create a great playbill for myself and others.

Along the way, I consulted with Ms. Triplo, Ms, Sykes, Ms. Woodward, and Mr. Kulak - a member of the LHS tech team, and my wife.

I had to research the right kind of paper to use (60#, 20#, 65#, gloss) how I would get the darned things folded and stapled, and how long they would take to run through the machine.

Along the way, glitches game along that had to be conquered. I had to carefully check, and double check my work. At one point, Ms. Triplo noticed something in the book that had to go after I started running it. Production had to be halted while I made the modification, then started the press again.

I couldn't do all the folding and stapling on my own; after all, there were 1000 books, so I had to enlist the help of students and volunteers.

To sum it up, I took my passion - theater- and married it with an interest of mine - desktop publishing and printing. The end result - a playbill. Although it is not perfect, I created it with a practical purpose in mind.