Dick "Richard" Albin

I grew up in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas and spent a number of years in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. I came to Kentucky to teach theater at a small Baptist College that went bankrupt the month I arrived. I decided to get into something more secure than teaching and became an entertainer, which I have done for the last twenty-five years.
 
I am proud to have worked as an artist-in-residence for the last seventeen years for the Kentucky Arts council in elementary, middle and high schools all over the state. I have worked with language arts, music, theater, history and social studies classes.

 I developed "Creative Storytelling", a workshop that uses storytelling techniques to teach creative writing, created a lesson plan to teach music as social studies and I have continued to teach theater to students from the kindergarten through the high school level.

I have built dulcimers with students in Knox County, taught students how to play the dulcimer in Bell, Grayson and Kenton Counties, helped students in Clay and Rockcastle Counties write and perform songs, helped students in Livingston, Benton and Hart Counties write and perform plays. And, I worked in Jefferson County as part of an arts project for incarcerated children.

My Creative Storytelling workshop uses storytelling to teach the basics of creative writing and performing. It is an excellent way to help writers and performers understand plot, character and setting. I use lecture/demonstrations and performance in combination with hands-on experience. The residency begins with a lectures that illustrate an approach to understanding character, plot and setting. The students work in small groups or individually to create a story that they can perform. The basics, Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, are covered. Character (Who), Plot (What) and Setting (Where and When) depend on each other. Understanding how they interact gives the students the tools they need to write and perform their own stories.
 
Music as Social Studies: I play the banjo, lap dulcimer, mouth bow and guitar. My musical workshops include Experiments in Song Writing, Creating a Musical Scrapbook and How We Use Music. I include not only western musical notation but ways other cultures use mnemonic devices to pass rhythms from one player to another. Music as Social Studies can be integrated into the classroom curriculum.  We can also build The Desktop Dulcimer.

The Play’s The Thing: And, don’t forget the theater! I have written plays with students about local history and helped them see what they have written on stage as a play. This workshop combines creative writing, storytelling and theater and is ideally suited for Humanities Teachers.
 
Many of the educational goals we have set for ourselves in Kentucky are addressed through these workshops. I will be happy to talk with teachers about how the workshops fit into their classes and address core curriculum. The workshops are tailored to meet the needs of the classes.
 
In-service programs are also available. This year, I have done teacher in-service programs for the Adair County Schools, at Eastern Kentucky University, for KAEA and KAAE.