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Goal

The goal of this project is to strengthen literacy, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving through the production of Finding Nemo Jr. at Emerald Coast Middle School. This year, our theatre program has expanded to include two theatre teachers, allowing us to provide students with more opportunities to take ownership of both the performance and technical aspects of a full-scale musical production.

A major focus of this project will be student-led scenic and costume design. Rather than relying primarily on adults to create the visual elements of the production, theatre students will participate in interpreting the script, developing design concepts, constructing scenic elements and props, painting set pieces, and selecting and styling costumes. Students will be challenged to determine how an underwater environment can be created onstage through color, texture, movement, scale, and imaginative use of materials.

The project will also continue our collaboration with ELA teachers to support Emerald Coast Middle School’s schoolwide focus on reading and literacy. Theatre provides a natural extension of ELA instruction because students must read closely, analyze characters, interpret dialogue and lyrics, identify themes, understand sequence and setting, and use textual evidence to make performance and design decisions. Our goal is to demonstrate that literacy does not end when students leave the ELA classroom; reading comprehension is essential to successfully telling a story onstage. 

What will be done with my students

Theatre students will work with both theatre teachers throughout the 2026–2027 school year to read, analyze, design, build, rehearse, and ultimately perform Finding Nemo Jr. in March. Students will begin with the script itself, studying characters, relationships, setting, conflict, themes, and the journey that moves Nemo, Marlin, Dory, and the other characters through the story.

We will continue collaborating with ELA teachers to incorporate literacy strategies into theatre instruction. These partnerships will help us select appropriate supporting texts, utilize graphic organizers and comprehension strategies, and incorporate approved outside media resources that help students analyze storytelling from multiple perspectives. Students will use these strategies to move beyond simply memorizing lines and instead understand why characters make particular choices and how the text communicates those ideas to an audience.

A significant portion of this year’s project will focus on technical theatre. Students will use the script to identify the many environments required to tell Nemo’s story and then work collaboratively to determine how those locations can be represented on our stage. Under the guidance of both theatre teachers, students will sketch ideas, measure spaces, calculate material needs, construct lightweight scenic pieces, paint panels, create coral and reef structures, and build oversized underwater props using materials such as cardboard, foam, fabric, paint, paper, PVC, adhesives, and other lightweight construction materials.

Costume design will follow a similar student-centered process. Students will study each character and develop visual concepts before selecting and ordering individual clothing pieces, accessories, headpieces, fabrics, and embellishments that can be combined into cohesive costumes. Rather than purchasing complete premade costumes, students will learn how designers source, combine, modify, and style individual pieces to communicate character while still allowing actors to move, dance, and perform safely.

The final production will allow students to see a story move from the written page through analysis, design, construction, rehearsal, and ultimately to a live audience. 

Benefits to my Students

Finding Nemo Jr. provides an especially engaging opportunity to combine literacy with project-based arts education. Students who may struggle to connect with traditional reading assignments often experience text differently when they have a meaningful reason to understand it. In theatre, comprehension has an immediate purpose: students cannot accurately portray a character, design a costume, build an environment, or communicate a story without first understanding the text.

Students will strengthen reading comprehension, vocabulary, speaking and listening, sequencing, characterization, and analysis while applying those skills to authentic creative tasks. Collaboration with ELA teachers will help ensure that strategies students encounter in their academic classes are reinforced through theatre, including graphic organizers, text analysis, supporting evidence, discussion, and reflection.

The technical component also creates opportunities for students whose strengths may exist behind the curtain rather than at center stage. Students will measure, budget, sketch, paint, construct, revise, problem-solve, and work in teams. Having two theatre teachers this year will allow us to more effectively facilitate these different areas of production while placing students in leadership roles and giving them greater responsibility for the finished product.

Success will be demonstrated through students’ script analysis, design concepts, construction work, rehearsals, collaboration, reflection, and final performance. Most importantly, students will be able to see tangible evidence of their learning surrounding them onstage: a production they did not simply perform, but read, interpreted, designed, built, and created together. 

Budget Narrative

The $2,000 grant request will fund student-designed costumes, student-built scenery, and specialty props for Emerald Coast Middle School’s production of Finding Nemo Jr. The budget intentionally places the greatest emphasis on costuming while also providing materials for students to create the underwater world of the production.

$1,300 will be dedicated to costume design and creation. This includes $450 for principal character costume pieces for characters such as Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Crush, Bruce, and other featured roles; $350 for ensemble costume pieces for sea creatures, sharks, turtles, jellyfish, aquarium characters, and other ensemble roles; $175 for costume accessories and headpieces; $175 for costume design and embellishment materials such as tulle, mesh, felt, fabric, ribbon, trim, elastic, Velcro, and iridescent materials; and $150 for dimensional costume construction materials, including lightweight foam, adhesives, and fasteners used to create fins, shells, tails, and other aquatic features. Students will participate in designing the characters and selecting individual pieces, primarily through Amazon, that can be combined and adapted into original theatrical costumes rather than purchasing complete premade costumes.

The remaining $700 will support student-built scenery, underwater effects, and props. $125 will purchase additional pool noodles and coral-building materials, particularly brighter colors needed to supplement materials we already own and create a colorful coral reef. $125 will purchase dimensional scenic materials, including rigid foam, craft foam, expanding spray foam, and textural materials that can be shaped into coral, rocks, and reef formations. $125 will provide magnets, Velcro, zip ties, adhesives, and other attachment materials so students can create interchangeable scenic pieces that attach to our existing Plyo boxes and scenic panels.

An additional $175 will purchase underwater scenic-effect materials, including sheer fabric, tulle, mesh, translucent and iridescent materials that students can use to represent water, currents, bubbles, jellyfish, and movement throughout the ocean. The final $150 will support specialty props and scenic finishing supplies, including materials for the jellyfish field, fishing net, aquarium, shipwreck and other story-specific elements, along with the limited paint and finishing supplies necessary to complete student-built pieces.

Together, these expenditures total the full $2,000 grant request: $1,300 for student-designed costuming and $700 for student-created scenery, effects, and props. By investing primarily in individual costume pieces and raw creative materials rather than finished costumes or commercially produced scenery, the funding will directly support the educational process. Theatre students will help interpret the script, develop designs, select materials, create costumes, and construct the visual world of Finding Nemo Jr., giving them meaningful ownership of the production from page to stage.
 

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