September 15, 2009

Dear Parents and Students:

Since I have been teaching at Evergreen I have arranged field trips to local colleges to both tour those colleges and see a play. Some of these productions have been better than others, and most have been very good.

Last year, while I was watching the Philadelphia Symphony perform, I wondered how many of my students had seen a full symphony orchestra. When I got back to school I discovered that none of the students I spoke with had. There is so much in the way of live performance within an hour or two of here that I thought I would put together a program to try to expose Evergreen students to an opera, a ballet, a modern dance performance, etc.

I have prepared two lists: one is a vast listing of live performance in the area this school year that I culled from local area college, local theater and other websites; this list is available online at www.evergreencommunityschool.org/Events2.doc. From this vast list, I have selected twelve that I will take a van-load of students to see. These may not all be world-class performances, but they represent a cross-section of schools, dates I can make and types of performance. This list is on the reverse side.

Please look over both lists. The long one may provide ideas for you and your family. This list is not complete and if you know of other performances that should be on this list, I would be glad to know of them. Regarding the shorter one:

· Students do not need to go to ALL of these.

· The first seven students to turn in a permission slip (available online at www.evergreencommunityschool.org/EventPermissionSlips ) and money for their ticket/dinner get to go.

· The cost of transportation (gas, tolls, parking) will be provided by Evergreen. We will take an eight-passenger van.

· Wherever possible, we will try to arrange for a campus tour and dinner in the college cafeteria, to provide an insight into what college life looks and tastes like.

· The van will leave school at about 3:00 pm and return to school as soon as possible, but this may be close to midnight. Some performances are on weeknights and some on weekends. We coordinate via cell phone on time of return.

· The ticket prices vary widely (from $0-37). Dinner is usually in the $6-8 range. I did not pick these shows based on price alone and for a few of them I am trying to negotiate lower pricing.

· Students who elect to write a review of the performance according to my guidelines will receive extra credit in their English class.

We hope your student can take advantage of these opportunities.

Best,

Daniel Cohen