Meredith McCarter’s classroom buzzes with energy and showmanship. In the space of one class period, her students will play improvisational theater games, write journal entries, do yoga stretches, share personal stories, and prepare scripts for a fictional superhero newscast.

McCarter, Middle School Drama Teacher at Charlotte Latin School, doesn’t teach Latin’s budding thespians only during the school day: after 3:30 p.m., she directs the Middle School theatrical productions, like this past fall’s Elf the Musical, Jr., or this past spring’s The Wind in the Willows. She says that when she’s directing a show, she deliberately shifts into “emotional robot” mode as opening night draws closer, making sure that she is as stable as possible for the dozens of adolescents in the cast and crew who may be going through wild mood swings.

In her classroom, however, she can be the merry prankster spurring her students to be more inventive. During an improv game called “Taxi,” students quickly adopt characteristics for a ride in a cab: drawling, scratching, whispering, coughing, and even barking. The sparks of creativity are almost palpable. “I just love curating experiences,” McCarter says later, sitting on a couch in the corner of her classroom, “whether that's something as small as a garden party at my house or something as large as a production here.”

Was it always obvious that you would end up doing theater?

I was a theater kid in high school, but I was also an athlete — tennis and running. And I’m from rural North Carolina, so when we did shows, it was like a barn dance, nothing even close to what happens here in Latin. I had a broadcasting minor in college, and I followed an ABC field reporter around for an entire summer in Raleigh. A taste of that turned me off to it. But I liked doing sports. And weather — although I didn’t want to go back to school for meteorology. I forged ahead in my school’s K-12 teaching program, and when we started going into classrooms, I fell in love with it.

How do you teach drama to Middle School students? 

In the classroom, I’m trying to get them to fall in love with being someone different than themselves. We play improv games: that goes very well for some classes that are comfortable with each other, but if they’re not in sync with each other, it can be miserable. They’re all craving more acting, wanting to get in front of their peers and make up silly stories. But when you ask them to do it, sometimes there’s this hurdle. So I spend a lot of time building community at the start of the year so they get to know each other. The other philosophy I try to follow is student choice: if you’re a warmup leader, you pick the tongue twister. Students get to pick the improv game. 

What’s the continuum of theatrical education across the grades at Latin?

Over the last ten years, Matt Cosper [Director of Theater Arts] and I have watched each other and aligned our programming, and we’ve gotten into this cool rhythm. At first, what I was doing felt like Language Arts 2.0: it was very English-heavy and I could tell my kids weren’t loving it. In the Upper School, Matt was not very English-heavy and needed to be more English. Since then, we’ve found what we mutually love. I’ve really leaned into Greek theater. He comes to my classroom and he tells them the story of the play, in his Matt Cosper way — then we assign roles and read the play. And now he’s teaching Greek tragedy, so we’ve created this whole Greek tragedy pipeline. He’s also taken what I’m doing with pantomime, and he’s created this really cool unit with his acting class that is very pantomime-heavy, because they already know these skills.

Alicia Long [Director of Performing Arts] incorporated a lot of my improv foundations in Lower School: I’ve taken them out of my seventh and eighth grade classes since now they’re already learning them in third and fourth grade. So we’ve also created a pipeline with improvisation.

What’s your favorite moment in the production process?

The two hours before opening night. The kids get to stay after school and eat pizza and watch a movie, and they are so excited about the show. Parents ask me if I want to go home and take a break, but I revel in that energy: it’s like Christmas morning. If I could encapsulate that and put it in a jar and sniff it every day, I would.

Tell me about a memorable mishap with a show here.

My first year at Latin, I was trying to make a good impression, but it felt like all the odds were against me. We were doing Peter Pan and I was very pregnant: my due date was right after the show. To make the performers fly, we hired an instructor and installer from Chicago to come down here, install the equipment, and teach flying to the parents who had volunteered to be the pullers, because the kids were not strong enough to do it. And the week before the show, it snowed: we were out of school for six days. The guy from Chicago is just sitting in his hotel room. He said, “I’m not scared to drive over there, but somebody’s got to unlock the building.” I had to get permission from eight people on campus to let him come in. My husband drives me to Latin, there’s ice everywhere, it’s very dangerous. I nearly slipped on the ice with my huge belly. We came back to school four days before the show opens and nobody had flown. We barely knew what we’re doing with singing and dancing. Debbie Lamm, the former Head of Middle School, allowed me to pull kids out of class to practice, which was the greatest gift, but it was total insanity and chaos.

Did the show come off okay?

It did! The flying was exceptional: we had the same guy come back for Mary Poppins.

What are the pros and cons of double-casting a show, where different actors play the same role at different performances?

Pros: You always have an understudy. And it creates more opportunities: we have so many kids who want to be in the show, so now I’ve created double the roles. Cons: You have two different shows. Sometimes it creates a little bit of a rivalry. Sometimes I don’t have to do it because there’s so many parts in a show. 

What were you like in middle school?

Very insecure. I could feel I was different from my peers. I mean, everyone says that, but my parents had a great love of art and that was not the community we were living in. That’s why I have so much compassion for these kids. The kids who do theater at this school are the most fantastic kids. They’re so well-behaved, they’re so thoughtful, they have deep awareness. I often joke that other teachers should feel jealous of me because I get to spend my afternoons with a really special group. And if I can also be the person those kids go to at their lowest low, then I’m doing my job correctly.