At Jess Schwartz College Prep: The Jewish Community’s High School in Phoenix, Arizona, our newly expanded performing arts program enriches our lives, strengthens our sense of community, and reinforces our Jewish values.
We now offer a three-year performing arts sequence beginning in the sophomore year:
TheatreSports—theatre games and improvisation
Arts EnterAction—performing arts, humanities, and technology
Theatre/Performance Lab I and II—acting in front of an audience and acting to affect change (next year to merge into Black-Box Theatre)
Improvisation is integral to the performing arts curriculum. Through improvisational exercises, students become comfortable performing in front of an audience from the outset. Improvisation by its nature reflects and reinforces the values of our school community—paying attention, responding supportively, and acting constructively.
Having heard that students were learning improv, the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company invited Jess Schwartz to participate in the Company’s Fifth Annual, First Ever, Teen Improv Festival. From this, an improv team developed, which has evolved into an improvisation troupe the students named Team Extreme Cheddar and the Red Dragon. So far, Team Cheddar has taken its unique brand of humor combined with Jewish values to Kivel Campus of Care senior nursing home, other senior nursing homes in the Phoenix area, and to the local Jewish day schools.
Improv isn’t the only form of performance art used by Jess Schwartz students to educate and unite the broader community. Last fall, the senior Performance Lab class staged Dear God, Let Me Be Popular, a one-act play by KT Curran and members of THE SOURCE Teen Theatre. According to Ms. Curran, “We desire to create an environment where teens feel confident and secure to make responsible decisions. Innovative theatre allows a breakdown of communication barriers so that we can reach adolescents at an early age and encourage them to think for themselves in ways that serve their best interests.” Jess Schwartz students performed the play for local middle school audiences.
Under the direction of singer-songwriter Todd Herzog, the Jess Schwartz a capella choir, Key Tov, and singers from the other three Phoenix-area Jewish day schools are collaboratively writing and performing an original song for our citywide celebration of Israel’s 60th birthday. The Jewish Community Foundation has generously underwritten this unique project.
Back at school, performing arts and technology methodologies are combining to produce exciting results. Last fall, for example, sophomores participated in a podcast project sponsored by The Partnership for Drug Free America, Arizona Affiliate, the Phoenix Suns basketball team, and the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team. The purpose of the project was to provide an outlet for Phoenix Valley teens to talk about the pressures and successes of making it in high school, particularly with regard to drug use. At Jess Schwartz, students created storyboards and acted out each message in TheatreSports, then produced videos in Technology, edited them in postproduction, and published their finished work as podcasts. Three of these podcasts were selected by vote of the entire school to be entered into the U B the Rent contest, an opportunity for teens to find a voice when it comes to tough issues—a chance to say what they want to their parents, and to the entire world.
By the end of this school year, students in performing arts and technology will produce a daily news show on the school’s website. This student-written, -produced, and -edited newscast uses a computer dedicated to the production department with Visual Communicator 3 presentation software and a webcam, all in a small studio on campus.
Finally, next month the curtain will rise on our first musical theatre production, The Boy Friend. Students will act, sing, dance, and help direct. For most, this is their first experience in front of a public audience. The play is expected to draw a wide audience, raising our visibility in the community.
Whether or not these students pursue performance once they leave Jess Schwartz, they will have gained an appreciation of the arts and of hands-on technology and they will have skills they can apply to all parts of their lives. ♦
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