Walking into the door, you enter a room full of ideas and even more importantly, hard work. Those two words perfectly encapsulate PPCHS’s theater. Although many of the officers from last year remain, there is an undeniably new hint of change in the air. This school year officially marks Director Hannon’s first year at Pines Charter.
The theatre room, as well as Director Hannon herself, has already given students a very positive outlook for the year with many new experiences to come. Her room is an environment for a lot of creativity as there are hand-shaped chairs in the corner of the room, encouraging posters on the walls, and many fun trinkets on shelves; the class always starts off on the right foot with a variety of music, such as the Mamma Mia and Barbie soundtracks; Director Hannon always has a bubbly personality and makes sure that everyone feels welcome in this class. One of the theater department’s officers, Peyton Goetz, holds strongly that, “director Hannon has been very open to listening and allowing for anyone to talk to her,” she said. “I think she has a way of understanding how a person may feel in the theater room especially if it’s someone in any of her classes.”
Even though she never has taught here before, she has great experience with theatre and production. Ms. Hannon loves to work with plays, and really allows the students to be engaged in everything. When she was in college she started her career off strong and has her own production company that has been a very good starting point for her. Director Hannon managed to maintain her work-life balance—with both the fun of college life—but also working with great people, allowing her to be more aware of what she wanted to do in the future.
Over the years, Pines Charter has evolved in the best way possible– between staff and students, the community has grown into a diverse array of classes, clubs, and more. Our school’s theatre program is constantly very active and involved, so they needed a leader just like Ms. Hannon. She was fresh out of college and officially decided to do something she loved– something that would give her a challenge in the best way. She says, “I was turning something in at the office at FIU and I went to speak to the front lady, and she asked me “what are you going to do now that you graduated?” I replied with “I don’t know I will probably teach,” and she was like “I just got an email looking for teachers here [at Pines Charter].” After that seemingly small interaction, Ms. Hannon’s wheels started to turn. Leading up to the decision that would ultimately shift the course of her future, she did her research on PPCHS to see if it was a good fit. She continues “And actually what drew me to this school was the CHAT Newspaper. Because you know in my production company I would write and direct my own stuff so this was so exciting that this was a school full of student writers. That was one of the main selling points in my interview.” After many nights of thinking and getting to know our school she “quickly wrote a cover letter to Velez and here we are!”
Our school has a big reputation for community and giving back, which itself often brings people to our school whether that is students, parents or even staff members like Ms. Hannon. Part of Hannon’s personality is that she loves to help and really allows her students to never be afraid of who they are and what their capabilities are. Hannon mentions “I really love the community aspect of this school. I was nervous as a first-year teacher and an art teacher, but Ms. Negron helped me out and she let me borrow some letters for a bulletin board and it also came from the students and my officers.” Being a theatre teacher takes a lot of responsibility, but luckily since Hannon has such a great support system the year should start very easily for her. As for teachers, they love to see their students’ dreams come true, but they also love to make their own dreams a reality. Being a teacher to Ms. Hannon often shows many similarities between where she started with her company to where she is now teaching– from “making sure everything is logged” to seeing that “the numbers are right and clerical stuff that comes with teaching is very similar to producing.”
As the year has so much in store already, Ms. Hannon says, “I am really excited to create WinterFest and Timmy Timmy coming up in October for the younger kids.” Director Hannon truly believes that her job already feels like home.
