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Gwendolyn
Freeman Lehman
Professional
Employment
1968-69
South
Hagerstown High School, Hagerstown, MD
1969-Present Stephen Decatur
High School, Berlin, MD
1984-1997
Summer
Enrichment and Acceleration Program for
the Worcester
County
Board of Education
Summer 2000 Summer Program in Musical
Theatre Arts
Summer 2001-2006, Director, Maryland
Summer Center for Musical Theatre Arts, A
Program of the Maryland State Department
of Education, Office of Gifted and
Talented
Summer 2007-present Summer Program in Musical
Theatre Arts
Education
Williamsport High School, Williamsport,
Maryland, 1964
B.A. Hood College, Frederick, Maryland
1968
M.A. Washington College, Chestertown,
Maryland 1976
Awards and
Honors
1984 Maryland State Drama Teacher of the
Year
1991 Worcester County Teacher of the
Year
1992 Outstanding Arts Educator for the
State of Maryland
Maryland
Alliance for Arts in Education
1997 Milken Award
1997 Governor's Arts Award for Maryland's
Outstanding Arts Educator
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Gwen
Freeman Lehman began her teaching career in 1968.
In the fall of 1969 she moved to the Eastern Shore
of Maryland to take a position teaching English and
psychology. After two years at Stephen Decatur High
School in Worcester County, she began to write a
theatre curriculum for the school. After more than
35 years, that curriculum now includes courses in
Introduction to Theatre and Theatre Production.
Theatre is now one of
the most popular electives at SDHS. Under her
direction, the Theatre Production class produces
four productions each year and the Introduction to
Theatre class produces two shows each year.
In 1995, the
Theatre Production class began a project to design
and build an outdoor courtyard theatre. Dedicated
in 1996, the Gladys
C. Burbage Courtyard
Theatre is now the
home of the Annual Shakespeare Under the
Stars. Now in its 9th year, students perform
adaptations of Shakespeare's plays each May in the
courtyard theatre. Students have been responsible
for raising all of the funds to support the theatre
and were responsible for securing all of the
permits once the project had been proposed and
approved. With the volunteer help of a local
contractor/architect, students secured donations of
lumber and materials and launched into the
construction of an outdoor stage. Since its
beginnings in the spring of 1995, gardens and
landscaping have been added as well as a brick path
and a fish pond.
Each year, Mrs.
Lehman selects a Shakespearean play to be adapted.
Her adaptations successfully abridge the text
without losing either the rhythm or beauty of
Shakespeare's poetry. Her goal is to make each text
more accessible to both her students and to the
audience. Beginning with A Midsummer Night's
Dream, Mrs. Lehman has now written adaptations
of nine Shakespearean comedies and is currently
working on an adaptation of Romeo and
Juliet.
Shakespeare Under the
Stars is relatively new compared to the
Annual Children's Theatre. Now in its 30th
year, the children's theatre draws audiences of
9,000 and has a 16-show run. Often based on classic
fairy tales, the annual children's theatre is
presented free of charge to all children grades
Pre-K through 6 in a region encompassing three
counties and two states. Known for elaborate sets,
special effects, and outstanding costumes,
attendance at the children's theatre just keeps
growing. From a single school and one performance,
this annual event now draws students from more
forty schools, as well as day cares, home schools,
and Headstart Centers. Each script is written by
Gwen Freeman Lehman. In addition to some original
stories, Mrs. Lehman has adapted Little
Red-Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, The
Fisherman and His Wife, The Emperor's New
Clothes, Jack and the Beanstalk and
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, among others.
Mrs. Lehman has won
numerous awards for her work in theatre. In 1984,
she was named Maryland Drama Teacher of the Year.
In 1991, she was selected as Worcester County
Teacher of the Year and in 1992 was named
Outstanding Arts Educator by the Maryland Alliance
for the Arts in Education. In 1997, Mrs. Lehman was
one of 150 educators nationwide to receive the
Milken Award for Outstanding Achievement. That same
year, she received the Governor's Award as
Outstanding Arts Educator for the State of
Maryland.
In the summer of
2001, Mrs. Lehman became the director of a Maryland
Summer Center for the Gifted and Talented,
collaborating with music teacher Mr. Rick Chapman.
Together, they wrote a one-act musical comedy for
performance by a group of twenty-seven students
from the ages of seven to thirteen. Mrs. Lehman and
Mr. Chapman continue their collaboration at the
same Maryland Summer Center. This year 35 students
were accepted from the sixty-three that
applied.
Mrs. Lehman began
writing her own adaptations out of her
dissatisfaction with scripts she would purchase for
production purposes. Children's theatre scripts
especially seemed far too formulaic or seemed to
talk down to young people. A friend and college
professor to whom she confided her frustration
said, "Why don't you write your own?" This
apparently simple comment gave her the courage to
write, something she had wanted to do even as a
child. Her very first script had been written as a
seventh grader when a teacher gave her class an
assignment to adapt a piece of literature from one
genre into another genre. Gwen chose to take a
short story and turn it into a play. Her work was
so successful that the teacher allowed the class to
produce the script, under Gwen's direction.
Today, Mrs. Lehman has
written more than forty plays, including an
adaptation of The Snow Queen for the
Children's Theatre Association of Baltimore and an
adaptation of Margret Hiltgunt Zassenhaus'
autobiographical novel Walls, adapted by
Mrs. Lehman at the request of its author.
What
distinguishes Mrs. Lehman's writing is its ability
to never talk down to an audience, its
sophisticated use of humor, and its aversion to
standard formulas. For example, narration in her
children's plays is always accomplished through
character and is woven seamlessly into the telling
of the story. Her narrators never step outside of
the story or the time and the place to address the
audience. Her children's theatres are written in a
manner that makes them appealing to audiences of
multiple ages, with some dialogue that only adults
will understand due to the references, and dialogue
with action aimed directly at preschool children
who have limited experiences. Mrs. Lehman also
writes study guides to accompany her children's
theatres and her adaptations of Shakespeare. This
allows audiences to come prepared to see her plays
and to understand both the texts and the subtexts
of each production. Her distinctive voice makes her
work easily recognizable and has earned her a
widespread reputation for excellence throughout her
region and the state.
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