Precision + Vision
Alumnus Edric Haleen Combines Love of Drama with Teaching Math
By Steve Miller

Walking into the classroom of the Lansing high school where he teaches is like hitting the stage for Edric Haleen, who sees every class as a performance opportunity. Never mind that algebra, which Haleen teaches three times a day, is a thorny subject more fraught with head-scratching than dramatic emoting.

“I have a captive audience,” says Haleen, 32, who graduated from the College of Education in 1997 on the heels of his bachelor’s in math in 1995. “I have to lead them to a conclusion, I have to make sure they can follow me. And sometimes, I have to pretend to be surprised by the results, which is part of the performance.”

His students at Waverly High School, in the Lansing School District where he has worked since 2000, know Haleen also as a beacon of the theater, be it through his help in the school’s theater productions or his adaptation of The Pushcart War, which Haleen scored, produced and directed at a local community high school auditorium this summer.

Through his teaching career, his love of math has marched him into the classroom, even though the subject is often despised by students, who “hate me by association.” At the same time, the students who like the subject stick with him; a number of his students worked on the set of the The Pushcart War.

“I am still pleased that by going to MSU and the College of Education, the school provided me with opportunities to do things outside my primary field of study, like the marching band, and literature and opera classes.”

It is his work in the theater, though, that has elevated Haleen in a most personal way. His pride and joy, The Pushcart War, the tale of bad old big business vs. the common merchant, hardly provides the basis for a musical on its face, but Haleen worked magic with it, assembling the New York cityscape, penning both script and songs.

“For 13 years, I had thought how great it would be to write a musical,” he said. Toying with a number of other titles, including Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon and Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, nothing clicked. Until he tackled the 1964 children’s novel by Jean Merrill.

“It was arduous work,” he said of the final version, which staged at a suburban Lansing arts center for 10 days last summer. He created in fits and starts, for two years, from the granting of rights to the actual production, “not glamorous at all, hammering out four bars of music over and over sometimes. I worked when I felt inspired.”

His aptitude and passion inspired others as well.

“Edric brings with him all the qualities of a math teacher, this demand for precision, and a vision,” said Jeff Miller, theater and events manager at Holt Public schools, where The Pushcart War was staged. “And he shows how you can engage kids in both the classroom as well as in the theater. By putting The Pushcart War on at a local community school district, it really shows what you can do through education to support a practicum.”

The son of a retired community college math teacher, Haleen has loved music and theater—as well as their offspring, the musical—since he was a child growing up in Bloomington, Minn. He didn’t know who pop star Michael Jackson was as a sixth grader in 1986, “but I was learning about music from NPR and Sesame Street records, and I was getting my sense of humor from my mother’s Smothers Brothers records.”

Flash forward a decade; Haleen’s embrace of culture shaped by his own love of theater and music, honed to a fine point by four years of watching world-class professional theater at the Wharton and four years playing the mellophone in MSU’s marching band.

“And I fell into teaching very naturally,” he said, noting that if not for the certification he earned in both secondary and elementary education, “I don’t know what I would do with my life.”

Drama, with its gripping power, has always pervaded every aspect of Haleen’s life. When he had decided that his girlfriend, Amy, was to be his one-and-only, he arranged to audition for Oliver! at a Lansing theater. But he had no interest in being part of the production. It was with Amy that he was shooting for a starring role. And she was auditioning for the play.

“There were around 100 people there, and he went into an eight-minute song he wrote for her and asked her to marry him,” said Dan Pappas, a former deputy superintendent at Waverly Schools as well as a colleague of Haleen’s in Lansing’s theater community. “It was incredibly creative.”

Which is how life is with Haleen.
“He always does things big and fun, it’s his personality,” said Amy Haleen, a 2003 MSU engineering grad who now attends vet school at MSU.

Edric’s next creation is taking root now, she’s sure, although he denies he has anything cooking: “I’m going to take a break,” he said. “I had a plan and put two years into it. I think that something will come along. And I’ll be ready.”

The Lesson

Musical Theater: Edric’s Top 5 for Kids

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice). Wide appeal, both fun to see in the theater and a fun listen on the CD. Based on the biblical story of Joseph.

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim). Dark and challenging tale from a man who single-handedly changed musical theater.

Into the Woods (music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim). All your favorite fairy tale characters, plus some new ones, interwoven in one show.

Once on This Island or Ragtime (music by Stephen Flahery, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens). For an introduction to another great musical team, and for shows that promote acceptance and celebration of diversity over prejudice. Beautiful songs, and heart-wrenchingly character-driven.

Songs for a New World (music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown). A revue, a collection of songs that he wrote and then staged in the hope of getting someone to notice him and offer him something bigger. (Which happened.)