A star among us Rockland drama teacher gets rave reviews

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She’s played Lady Macbeth and a host of other characters, but Alison Machaiek is better known for her proteges – her drama students at Rockland District High School.

“The Theater I class did ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’ and we got rave reviews from the fourth grade,” she explained.

“Miss M,” as she is called, gets just as excited about the accomplishments of beginning actors and technicians as the work of her more experienced students in this season’s “A Play on Words” – one reason she is so highly thought of among students and parents.

In fact, it was senior Jen Logan Gerrish who worked with her mother, Beth Gerrish, on Machaiek’s successful nomination for the Bill Bonyun Artist-Educator Award from the Maine Alliance for Arts Education.

Machaiek received the award March 1 in a celebration at the Hall of Flags in the Capitol at Augusta.

“There are so many people dedicated to the arts in our community, I was blown away,” Machaiek said of the award. “I really was. I was absolutely thrilled, honored. It’s so nice when someone tells you you’re good at something you love.”

Looking back, it seems inevitable that Alison Carter Machaiek would love drama and want to share it.

“My mom loved literature,” she explained. “She was also a drama teacher and an English teacher. She directed me in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.'”

Machiaek had her heart set on the role of Titania, but her mother didn’t give her the part. Instead, she cast her as Bottom, a role Machaiek acknowledges is a lot of fun for an actor.

The teacher grew up in Rhode Island, but visited Maine over the years.

“I vacationed here as a kid. I read Elizabeth Ogilvie,” she related.

Machaiek earned a bachelor’s degree after high school, and then, at Lesley College in Boston, a master’s in integrating arts into the curriculum.

It was her marriage to David Machaiek that brought her to Maine, eventually. They had come to Owls Head on their honeymoon, then lived in New Hampshire before moving here and raising a family of two daughters.

She taught in a variety of areas in the school system, and there were acting opportunities in the region as well, but her husband wanted her to be home more.

“He encouraged me to do drama with kids. He said, ‘I’ll build your sets,'” she recalled.

Principal Michael Gundel remembers what it was like before Machaiek took over the drama program several years ago.

“My first year here, they did a play with six characters, and couldn’t get enough students. I had to play one of the characters,” he said.

What a difference a decade makes.

Machaiek’s extracurricular position has grown into a full-time job teaching drama, and Rockland won state championships in Division II in the Maine Drama Festival in 1995 and 2000. The school moved up to Division I this year.

The auditorium has been renovated, and because of that, Rockland was host to the state festival this past weekend for the first time.

The teacher’s guidance was key to the program’s growth, Gundel explained.

“She had 70 students in her first production. Her personality is dynamic and magnetic, and she really tapped into a niche,” he said.

“There’s a ton of research that kids involved in any activity, kids who are busier, generally do their work,” he said of the ramifications on the academic side.

“And there’s new research on how the brain works – that if you tap into creative activity, that generally unlocks a whole new person,” he said.

Gundel speaks not only as an educator, but as the parent of a daughter who was very withdrawn as a kindergartner. But in high school, the youngster was on one of the state championship drama teams.

The secret to Rockland’s flourishing drama program, Machaiek says, is “It’s cool here to do drama. Kids want to do it. My auditions keep getting larger and larger.”

Sometimes pupils seek her out at a young age. It was six years ago that Jen Logan Gerrish approached Machaiek.

“Here was this sixth-grader, arm in a sling. She said, ‘I’m going to be an actress someday,'” Machaiek said. Gerrish will attend Vassar College next year as a theater major.

“I’ve worked with a lot of directors,” Gerrish said, but Machaiek is special. “I’ve done independent study with her. She helps me foster not only the acting side, taking time to run lines, but the academic side – history, technique.”

Drama cultivates confidence, she explained. “I like being able to put myself aside and know I’m changing people in the audience – making people cry or making people laugh. Drama forces you to think on a different plane, to get in that mindset.”

Her favorite role so far has been the title character in the Greek tragedy “Medea,” and she’d really like to play “Antigone,” as well.

She’d also enjoy doing the male role of Hamlet, she said, joking that she could do it if Mel Gibson could, “although I’d also settle for Ophelia.”

The senior agrees with Gundel that being involved in drama has a positive effect on the schoolwork of participants.

“They’ve strapped on their boots and really gone to town in classes,” Gerrish observed of her schoolmates.

“I try really hard to use a variety of students,” Machaiek said. “In ‘The Wiz,’ last fall, most of the cheering squad was doing flying stunts.”

Building the scenery and assembling the sets and costumes are also vital activities. In the back of Machaiek’s classroom are some of the equipment – iron and ironing board, electric drill, sander, tool bags.

“My tech kids like to challenge themselves to see how fast they can set up a complicated stage.” Sometimes, she said, “you can’t take that athletic competition out of it.”

But even great sets can’t make up for the deficiencies of an auditorium with hard seats and inadequate lighting.

“We just needed renovations,” Machaiek acknowledged. In one play, the hat of a child lying on the stage melted because of the footlights.

The board for SAD 4 was supportive of the renovations, and so were the parents – the “drama mamas” that are vital to the program, Machaiek said.

Gundel credits the teacher for her part.

“If she hadn’t brought the program to a certain point, there wouldn’t have been the need,” he said.

“What we have now is a wonderful facility,” Machaiek said.

“It’s so nice to have this space,” Gerrish agrees, gesturing to the comfortable seats, the carpeting, the acoustic panels. “And we never had any storage before.”

Machaiek continues to grow as an actor and a teacher. On May 12, she will portray Amelia Earhart at the Owls Head Transportation Museum, where her husband is the artistic director.

No doubt she’ll be involved in some kind of summer program, as well. Last year it was a joint effort with artist Chris Cart at the Farnsworth Museum of Art.

“The kids selected a picture and re-created it on canvas, to use as a starting point, backdrop or end frame,” Machaiek said.

They chose a scenic picture with a dog in it, with Machaiek guiding them in writing a murder mystery based on the art, in just five days.

“It was really wonderful,” she said. “Each child wrote a monologue – everybody would have reason to take the dog. And I would come in every day and marvel at what they had done with Chris” on the artwork.

Come fall, Alison Machaiek will be back at Rockland District High School working on more productions with her students.

“I try to give them all a chance to shine,” she said. For one drama teacher, “This is a very happy place to be.”