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Ending On A Good Note

CANDACE C. MUNDY/TAMPA TRIBUNE

Claywell Elem. School students prepare for the opening of a musical called "You've Got to Have Three", written by Lynda Goetz, the school's music teacher, who is retiring from the school after 41 years of teaching. In the middle front, 1st grader Madison West is all giggles during the performance.

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

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NORTHDALE - Some people want to go out with a bang. Lynda Goetz's departure involved xylophones, choreography and three little pigs.

Goetz, Claywell Elementary School's music teacher, retired last week after 41 years of teaching, 19 of them at Claywell. She left with a production unlike anything else her students had seen.

More than 90 children and parents pitched in this week and last to perform a three-day run of a musical Goetz wrote for the school. "You've Got to Have Three" introduced cheeky versions of the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" in Act One and the "Three Little Pigs" in Act Two. A chorus and band of xylophones and triangles from children in kindergarten through fifth grade provided accompaniment.

"She's a giver all the way to the end," Principal Glenda Midili said .

The schoolwide play grew out of a Parent-Teacher Association idea. PTA members wanted to fund a project that would get more children involved in the school. Goetz suggested she write a musical.

It wasn't as far out as it sounded. Goetz, 62, used to direct Claywell fourth- and fifth-graders in the 1990s in productions of "The Pirates of Penzance" and "H.M.S. Pinafore." It got too hard to keep it up, she said, as the school dealt with crowding and pressures to succeed on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

Goetz also had experience writing music for locally produced shows. She loves composers Gilbert and Sullivan and said the music she writes reflects that influence.

"You've Got to Have Three" was the first time she combined songwriting, scriptwriting and directing. She came up with the music first and began rehearsing with the children in October as she finished the script. The plot and dialogue started flowing, she said.

"It was like a movie," Goetz said. "I saw it all in my head."

She made the costumes for the main characters and held rehearsals in the mornings before classes started and at her house during winter vacation. She has loved seeing the pieces come together.

"Kids are amazing," she said. "You never know; if you push them, they'll do it."

Parents and other teachers helped. Muralist Don Smith, who is married to a Claywell teacher and has a child in the play, painted sweeping farms and valleys for the set. Moms backstage pinned costumes and fixed pig snouts and goat horns on students' heads. They marveled at Goetz's talent and commitment.

"It is incredible what she can pull together in such a short amount of time," said Sharon Smith, a first-grade teacher whose son, Tyler, played "biggest billy goat."

Midili said Goetz knows how to extract the best from students as well.

"She taught us how to project our voices," said 9-year-old Molly O'Laughlin, one of the billy goats. "She taught us how to take breaths while we sing."

She and billy goat Payton Hiday, 9, also were impressed with Goetz's background. She had directed Brittany Snow in a play when she was at Claywell. The girls had seen Snow, who attended Gaither High School before moving to Hollywood, in the movie "Hairspray" last year.

Brooke Dupre, 10, commanded the stage as the "mean, ugly troll," a creature in Grinch-green that threatens to eat the Billy Goats Gruff. Goetz taught her to do a troll walk, and the fourth-grader skulked out from the bridge to deliver her lines. "It isn't easy to be mean, but I have a reputation to uphold," Brooke said, in character, during the play.

The play debuted Jan. 28 before Claywell students in the school cafeteria. Students also put on a show for family and friends on Thursday and more students on Monday.

Before the premiere, Goetz adjusted costumes and led the group in breathing exercises to relax them and to prepare them to sing. She introduced the musical to the student audience with a primer on theater behavior. "When the curtain closes, you are supposed to clap," she said. "Do not clap in the middle of songs. Wait until the end of the song."

She taught her cast about timing as well. If the audience laughed during a line, she said, they should stop talking and repeat what they said. Pausing for audience reaction comes with experience.

Between acts, she returned backstage for costume changes and last-minute reassurances before rushing to the front to take her place at the keyboard. Goetz followed along with the script during the dialogue, her lips moving to the lines, and occasionally she mouthed "louder" when voices fell.

Offstage, children peered between curtains to watch the action and mimed the motions during songs. At the end, the curtain closed, and the cast erupted in cheers.

They would do two more shows, and then Goetz would be retired. She loves to write, especially children's music, and was surprised at how much fun she had creating a script. She is thinking of doing more fairytale adaptations.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503 or cpastor@tampatrib.com.

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