Cheshire Cat Composition

Mentor Wonders is a poetic drama about volunteer mentoring in a South Texas bilingual public school. During a volunteer Orientation at a San Antonio bilingual public school, new mentoring volunteers wonder about safety, while staff and veteran mentors share stories about their interactions with students. These conversations are occasionally interrupted by ＂Dreamscapes,＂ poetic daydreams by members of the group.

An AMBER alert goes off, upsetting everyone when they realize that the abducted child is one of their own mentees. This shocking situation eventually resolves so that both the boy and his mentor stay friends and are able to go on with their separate lives.

Issues raised in the play include causes of such problems as tardiness, excessive absences, disruptive behavior, and academic weakness faced by less affluent and/or Spanish-dominant children entering public school; and the social impact of school lockdown drills, necessitated by lax firearms regulation.

Four poems written about mentoring experiences are embedded within the script. The volume also contains additional poems about doing mentoring or being mentored, that may be optionally included at the director’s discretion.

Mentor Wonders was developed and written by Catherine Lee with Individual Artist funding support from the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture.