By Sahara Lyon-Mundy
COCA’s Arts Education Grant, designed to support creative instructional approaches to funding arts education projects not supported by classroom budgets, has been used by arts teachers to produce a myriad of projects. One of COCA’s FY25 Round Two Grantees, Bryan F. Mitchell, used his grant funds to produce Apalachee Tapestry Magnet School of the Arts’ spring musical, Little Mermaid Jr. COCA had the opportunity to chat with Mitchell about his grant project, the execution of the musical itself, and his philosophy as an arts educator.
Mitchell is the musical theater teacher and leader of the Tapestry team at Apalachee. He’s been teaching at Apalachee Elementary for 7 years and was a paraprofessional and drama teacher throughout the county for around 5 years before that. Mitchell applied for and received funding from the second round of COCA’s FY25 Arts Education Grant program. Funded annually by Duke Energy, 2025 marked the first time COCA was able to offer two grant cycles in one academic year, thanks to an additional grant from the Foundation for Leon County Schools. This additional support provided more teachers with funding to execute exciting arts education projects normally out of reach within their classroom budgets. Mitchell applied for and received a grant to assist with costumes for this year’s production of the Little Mermaid Jr. Every year, Mitchell puts on a school-wide musical that features students from kindergarten to 5th grade. This year’s production included 38 students to costume! Each ensemble actor had 4 different costumes to change into, and lead characters like “Ariel” had 3 or more costume changes to do. The kids put on four shows- two evening performances for the community and two morning performances for students at Apalachee, totaling around 600 attendees over the course of the show’s run.
A chance to perform in Apalachee’s spring musical is highly sought after, so Mitchell has developed an audition process for his students to follow. To start with, Mitchell works with his Tapestry team, made up of the school’s art teachers, to develop a guide for which characters suit which grade levels, based on the show he’s selected for that year. The students can pick a character within their grade level to audition for, then start preparing a monologue and song for the audition. While Mitchell tries to include as many students as possible in the show, the audition process is competitive. The highest number of students he’s had audition for a spring musical was 111, with the largest show cast around 45 students. The competitive nature of casting and the year-long planning that goes into the show makes the spring musical a very high-quality production. Mitchell stated, “I like to call it our ‘homecoming week’, our ‘championship football game’.”
The musical itself, and therefore the planning and development process for the show, is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative. As the musical theater teacher, Mitchell is the director of the show, and each of the other Tapestry teachers has a unique role as well. The art teacher is in charge of set design; the media teacher handles marketing and PR; the PE teacher is on ticket duty; and the music teacher is the house manager. These roles extended to the students as well, with Apalachee’s art teacher, Ashley Chandler, assigning her students to make props for the show.
Mitchell understands how important that is. He stated, “it’s a good way to show students how they can contribute to something.” He continued, “a lot of the kids want to be a part of the musical, but they’re afraid to get up on stage.” The interdisciplinary nature of musical theatre allows students to contribute in a multitude of ways.
Apalachee Elementary is a Fine Arts magnet school, where arts programs foster creativity and critical thinking in students. Therefore, the entire school and its administration, led by principal Dr. Pam Hightower, recognize the importance of arts education in the classroom. Mitchell stated, “I try to instill into the kids an appreciation of the arts. It helps broaden their worldview.” He continued, “Theater gives people a cathartic moment-they come in feeling one way and walk away feeling a whole different way. For the kids, it’s another way to express their feelings.” Mitchell’s personal and professional background also reflects his emphasis on arts education. Mitchell graduated from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) with a degree in theater, and in addition to teaching, he’s since founded and runs a theater company of his own. His company, Essential Theatrical Associates (ETA), started with other FAMU theater alumni, regularly puts on shows at the Monticello Opera House. Their next show, Dearly Departed, opens on July 17th. Visit ETA’s website to learn more about the show and see Mitchell in action on yet another Capitol City stage.
English
English
French
German
Italian
Spanish
