Congratulations! You're now reading the first words I, Connor Shields, college graduate has written. The former college student known as Connor Shields has vanished and won't ever be seen again (I don't think it's a lie this time but check back in a few years lol). If I thought last year was a roller coaster, this year puts that to shame. Student teaching is not for the weak but I truly can say that it was an absolute blast and I wish I had more time with my students, CT, and

Today has marked the end of another semester at the Walnut Street Theatre School. This time I got to work with a wonderful instructor, Manny River! We taught two classes: 101: Kids Acting for Ages 5-7 and 102A: Kids Musical Theatre for Ages 5-7. For the acting class, we performed a story based on characters created by the students. For the musical theatre class, we did a song and dance combo to Hakuna Matata from "The Lion King" and Under the Sea from "The Little Mermaid." It

This past weekend we closed the school-wide musical, Mary Poppins! This was my second time doing the show and I had an absolute blast getting to be on the production team. This was my third time assistant directing a show but the first time doing a musical and I'm so glad it was this show. I'll admit, when I first found out it was Mary Poppins I wasn't too excited (I remember back in high school thinking the show was too long) but this time around it flew by! I was also a mem

This past weekend was closing of the Sophomore show! For the past few months, the students have been working on eight different scenes which accumulated into the One Act Festival. Under the brilliant direction of Rachel Maselek, these students brought to life so many challenging pieces, encouraging these fantastic actors to push themselves in a way they haven't been pushed. I was the assistant director for this production, and while I may not have been able to see the student

I've been back full-time at GCIT for a few weeks now and it has been wonderful! I didn't realize how much I missed my CT, my students, and the overall school but that place has become a new home. But the really exciting part about being back is the class Singing for the Actor! I spent a solid amount of time during my break trying to plan (who doesn't love lesson plans on a plane or in a hotel room?) and while I'm confident in the class, this is definitely something I'll be fi