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Warrenton, VA, November 30, 1998 — LTIŽ Musical Theater Education announces the first interactive multimedia CD-ROM instructional program in Musical Theater. The program, using the hit swing musical Take It Easy, features instructional sequences covering music, dance, drama, plot, and history that illustrate college campus life during the World War II era. This CD-ROM, which includes interpretive commentary on each scene of the musical and relates it to the historical period, offers teachers a unique resource to help in the teaching of culture, manners, and history by utilizing a musical play to present a unified and integrated multimedia interpretation of this portion of our American heritage.
Take It Easy deals with a seldom recounted aspect of World War II history, the enlisting of over 200,000 of our army inductees into the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). The ASTP was in operation from 1942-1944 on many college campuses, and was part of the lives not only of the ASTP soldiers, but also of their families and their sweethearts or friends who were among the undergraduate coeds enrolled at the same time. The story is about young men who were taken from their college campuses to find themselves on other college campuses, in uniform. It is also about the girls who saw their boyfriends leave to go to war and were, shortly thereafter, presented with a new crop of young men to console them, if only temporarily--for many of these ASTP units were abruptly disbanded to provide front line ground troops, which often resulted in tragic casualties. The more serious lessons of this story are subtly woven into a romantic plot with a twist, in the classic tradition of the 1940s musical comedy, as Take It Easy celebrates a more innocent America.
Teachers can use this entertaining vehicle to broaden students’ insight into a period in American culture strikingly different from today’s. The program is fun and is an innovative way for teachers to help students learn about the musical theater arts as it encourages them to develop their own creative voices, acting abilities, and technical appreciation of musical theater.
The CD-ROM educational program is usable in elementary or middle schools as a low budget way to supplement the traditional programs in music and visual arts. For high schools, colleges, and community theaters it provides a learning tool in addition to serving as an interactive teacher’s guide and student reference for use in producing the musical itself.
The Musical Theater Education CD-ROM for educational institutions is priced at $19.98 plus $3.50 shipping and handling and is available directly from the Institute.
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