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There's a lot on their plates

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 3, 2009

PROGRESS VILLAGE - She says her secret desire is to one day operate her own professional dinner theater, a venture that would incorporate her love of cooking and costume design.

But that will take a lot more capital than Debbie Scourtes has managed to accumulate on her teacher's salary.

So Scourtes does the next best thing.

She heads the culinary arts and costume design program at Progress Village Middle Magnet School for the Performing Arts, where acting and appetites mingle in an untraditional classroom setting filled with ovens, computers, refrigerators, sewing machines and dress mannequins.

As Scourtes' students learn the art of cooking and costume design, in the classroom next door students study acting with drama teacher Tyler Leavitt.

Then, each year for the past four years, the two teachers team up to present the Hillsborough County public schools' only middle school dinner theater production.

This year, the teachers collaborated on two. They typically host a dinner theater for about 200 people each October. However, this year they decided to also do a spring dinner theater to raise money to send three of Scourtes' students to the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America national competition in Nashville from July 11 to 17.

Students Danielle Lenhardt, Abby May and Camden Christenson earned spots in the national competition after placing first in the state competition.

The spring dinner theater, "First Dates," about five couples on first dates in a Paris restaurant, was written by Leavitt and performed May 29 by the PV Players, the school's advanced production team.

The successful performance was the culmination of a busy month for Scourtes' culinary arts and design programs that included a Spring Fling food expo and fashion show May 21.

During the expo, culinary arts students sold food they produced in a challenging end-of-year project that incorporated their cooking abilities with computer, math and marketing skills.

"The students had to come up with a food product, form a company with a name and logo, prepackage the product and price it to sell ... at a profit," Scourtes said.

This is where Bryanna Mateo, 13, and Darius King, 14, discovered the benefits of creating a prototype in a test lab. Their company, Snookum Pops, planned to make sugar cookies with chocolate frosting served on lollipop sticks.

However, when the two students rolled out the dough, they discovered the cookies were too thin to stay attached to the sticks. They decided to put the batter into star- and heart-shaped muffin tins instead.

"This is great practice for my career," King said. "I want to be a chef. I already do a lot of cooking at home. I made breakfast for my mom for Mother's Day."

Rachael Carlson, 13, a member of both the culinary arts and advanced costume design classes, had the perfect name for her team's product, a seasoned pretzel baked on a skewer.

"It's Totally Twisted," she said. "We'll have to sell it for, like, $3 to make a dollar profit, though."

Snack foods aren't the only items on the menu in Scourtes' class.

Once a month the students open the doors to Curtain Call Cafe, inviting teachers and staff to dine on a different style of international cuisine. One month, for example, the students served an English-style high tea with shepherd's pie, cheddar cauliflower quiche, roasted root vegetables, country scones, baked rice pudding, assorted tea cakes and composed green salad.

"This class is a lot of fun," said Christa Gambrell, 12. "I love cooking and baking, and there aren't a lot of middle schools with this type of program."

Despite the level of activity throughout the classroom that Scourtes can only describe as "controlled chaos," she said she doubts she'd leave teaching - even for the chance to run her own dinner theater.

"I wouldn't be happy doing anything else," said Scourtes, who will be entering her 10th year at Progress Village. "Teaching these kids is my passion."

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