Upper School Intersession 2025

Have you ever had an idea for a TV show or app and wondered how you would even go about trying to create it? Well, the one thing TV shows, apps, sneaker companies, etc. all have in common is that their creators first had to pitch the idea to investors. If you have an idea that you’d like to sell, this workshop is for you.

Emmy-nominated TV writer Michael Kramer is going to teach you how he takes ideas for TV shows and turns them into compelling oral presentations in order to get Hollywood studios, networks and streamers to buy them. He’ll break down the whole pitch for you using actual pitches of his that have sold -- going from what inspired the idea to how to succinctly describe it to developing the characters to the importance of a theme. And whether your idea is for a TV show or something else, you’ll each get to present to the class the opening of your pitch: a short description of your idea and what inspired it. So whether your idea is for a TV show or another creative outlet, by the end of the workshop you’ll have an understanding of how to transform that idea into an actual presentation and tailor it to your unique talents so that your idea will have the best chance of selling. And hopefully have fun doing it.

"He plundered and burnt the town, bestowed the booty on the troops, and then crossed the Loire with the army." Julius Caesar led a huge army that conquered much of modern day France, leaving death and destruction in its trail. He also wrote reports on that war, seven books known as the Gallic War (from which the first sentence is quoted). Slightly less than a generation later, the poet Vergil wrote the Aeneid, which Romans thought of as their national poem; it too deals with warfare and its costs, but from a very different perspective. Two Romans, two takes on war: where Caesar is cold and calculating and distant,Vergil is close and compassionate.
In this seminar we will read and discuss sections of Caesar's Gallic War and Vergil's Aeneid. We'll reflect on the representations of war by the two authors, what it means to be human(e) in times of war, the notion of the hero (then and now), and views of 'the other'; and, lastly, questions of destiny, the darkness and cost of empire, and loss. We will combine it with a modern reading on drone warfare.

Live Action Role Playing (LARP), players pretend to be someone else, living in a different time or place, and acting out events that might happen in that world. Many of these games involve battles, and so LARPers use safe, padded props that look like weapons to act out the combat. Unlike in a play where everyone has certain lines to say and the story is set, in LARP, the players each act out a certain person and make their own decisions for that person as the game evolves. Live Action Role Playing is a tremendous teaching tool and capable of dynamic, physically driven learning that transcends the usual boundaries of standard education. Due to the interactive, dramatic, hands on methods used in LARP, teaching is often effortless and fun. This class begins with basic battle training and rules of combat, followed by character creation and entry into the game world of Roekron, a game world continuously run for over two decades in the Bay Area and which currently has leagues all across the region with weekly and monthly meetups. Students will have a character at the end of this class that can be taken and used in any of the other Roekron League events they choose and may continue their story at future events if they wish.

Topics Covered:
- First Five Battle Rules
- Equipment Sets and Weapons
- Armor System of AV
- Basic Spell and Skill Types
- Overview of the Classes
- Character Species
- Character Backstory
- Alignments
- Flow of Events
- Playing a Monster or NPC
- Quests and Role Playing
- Magical Items and Money Cards
- Completing a Mission
- Transfer of Characters to other leagues

Check out these videos to get a sense of what we'll be doing!
Intro (2min)
The Regulars LARPing (SF Chronicle)- 
https://youtu.be/YdnqN-TcBq4

Core Rules-(13min)
The First Five Rules- 
https://youtu.be/K7PVm6rw2H8
Armor Zones- (3min)
https://youtu.be/N67hPOenaHU
Color Tags- (5min)
https://youtu.be/XIbgvo-5nnA

-Bonus Material-
TEDx Talk on LARPing with Kids and Teens- (10min)
https://youtu.be/L6xl-qYRHco

Sebastopol Times Article 2024
(10min read)

"Don’t tell me words don’t matter. I have a dream – just words words. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal – just words. We have nothing to fear but fear itself – just words, just speeches" (President Barack Obama).

Back in the day, in his first campaign for president, Barack Obama promised change; yet in formulating that promise he relied on rhetorical rules, which for more than 2000 years have remained unchanged. Across the ages another politician and orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, can help us analyze and appreciate Obama’s and other contemporary politicians’ rhetorical accomplishments.

We will look at excerpts from speeches by Obama, Bill Clinton, Pericles, Cicero, and Tacitus with an eye to their enactments of specific rhetorical rules–formulated in ancient times, followed to this day. Words have always mattered.

When people think of “networking,” they imagine attending social events to meet the right people to advance their careers while exchanging business cards. The reality is that building relationships leads to making meaningful connections that happen in both personal and professional settings. 

Instead of thinking about networking as making a business connection, think about it as creating a friendship. Demonstrate interest in others to build relationships in the same way you would make a friend through The FACE Framework: Familiarity, Authenticity, Curiosity, and Elasticity. You are the FACE of your organization!

This session will include storytelling to demonstrate each element of FACE. There will also be an activity called “Speed Friending” that encourages audience members to find what they have in common as they learn about each other for who they are.