The Priceless Benefits of Drama & Why We Need Drama Education in Classrooms

Disney's Camp Rock, the Musical!

Shannon was asked to direct the Lexington-Richland School District's annual musical for the 2017-2018 season.  This was an incredible honor as a middle school arts teacher within the district. With a fabulous production team assisting her, she chose Disney's Camp Rock, the Musical.  

Knowing that the classes among the middle school students in the district are rich with talent, Shannon fought to get approval for 8th graders to audition for the musical. This production became the first in the district's history to allow middle school students to audition. 

Under the direction of Mrs. Boatwright, the district musical of Camp Rock was a huge success, bringing in the largest audience the district has ever had at a Sunday matinee. Overflowing with inspiration and total fun, the 2017-18 school year district musical was a marvelous achievement. 

Shannon's honors students experienced shooting a music video with professionals, at a professional studio and premiered their video at their big end-of-the-year performance, Back to the Past: The 80s!  

Shannon is ever grateful to Genesis Studios for collaborating with her on this project 

to provide her students with such an incredible learning experience!  

Arts Integration Residency Work

A Night of Short Plays - History Comes to Life!  Six Books, Six 4th Grade Classes

Exploring 1920s Culture through Radio: 

The Art of Producing a Radio Show of the Roaring Twenties

Dances from the Jazz Era... 

Jazz dance mirrors the social history of the American people, reflecting ethnic influences, historic events, and cultural changes.

Shannon's Students asked to Participate in the CAE AirSafe Drill! 

AirSafe 2016 & 2019

Every 3 years the FAA requires every commercial airport to conduct a full-scale emergency exercise involving an aircraft accident with “victims”. This event, called AirSafe, provides priceless training for first responders and officials and serves as a test to make sure all involved know exactly what is expected of them in order to help others and save lives. 

Shannon's 8th Grade Honors Drama students at Chapin Middle School were invited to participate in 2016 and she carried on the opportunity with her 8th Grade Musical Theatre students at Beechwood Middle School in 2019. Talk about a fabulous, once in a lifetime opportunity for these kids! When Shannon's old friend, Fire Chief Glenn Williams, reached out to her about the event and invited her young actors, all she could think was…Wow! What an amazing experience this could be for her students and at such a special time of year as we remember 911. Glenn put Shannon in touch with Captain Daniel J. Ruggiero, who was in charge of the entire event at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.  As she learned more about the event and the roles her students would get to play, she knew she had to do whatever she could to make this happen and allow her students to partake in this unique experience.

With full support from both school districts and her administration, her students participated in the full-scale mock disaster drill. Their role was to portray plane crash victims. When they arrived they were given an actor symptomatology tag which displayed their symptoms, each being given specific injuries to act out – fake blood and all - which naturally the kids thought was especially cool, as it added an element of reality for them and everyone involved. Once the disaster drill began, first responders came to the scene, rescued all the passengers and begin triage to determine their priority.  

For Shannon's students to have this opportunity to create and portray very unique roles that provided valuable training for fire rescue & EMS personnel, well, there’s no denying it was a priceless experience for these young actors.  Not only was it a super cool acting gig for these students, but it also was an eye-opening experience that allowed them to recognize, understand and appreciate the crucial role of our first responders and all that they do to keep us safe.

As a teacher and director of the arts, Shannon is ever thankful for this opportunity that her students were able to experience. She is also thankful that she and her chaperones had the opportunity to experience and deepen thier appreciation for our awesome first responders.  

Theatrefolk features Shannon's Honors Drama Production of 

"Shuddersome: Tales of Poe"

"Run For Life" 

A Special Collaboration with The Central Carolina Performing Arts Center dancers.   

Shannon's daughter was taking dance classes at CCPAC and Shannon happened to catch the dancers rehearsing to this song by Melissa Etheridge. Having had the opportunity to interview rocker, Etheridge, after she had battled cancer, seeing these dancers perform to this amazing song moved her so much that she was inspired to do something very special with this beautiful and meaningful piece. She approached the choreographer and pitched her idea and this incredible project was born.  This video was featured at Relay for Life events and ended up reaching & touching so many people. 

A collaboration with CCPAC, produced and directed by Shannon and shot and edited by Shannon's sister, Chelsea Vaughan Parler.