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About GHS Theater Arts
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- The GHS Theater Arts program is known throughout the state for the quality and diversity of its theatrical offerings. In April 2005, the Educational Theater Association recognized it as being one of the top five programs in the nation. This was the third time (the first two were May, 2000 and June, 1995) the program was cited not just for the superior quality of its productions but for the way its courses and instructors bring theater to students at all levels of ability and interest. In the most recent survey on GHS alumni assessment of the high school and its programs, Theater Arts was ranked highest (4.65) over all co-curricular activities, including athletics (4.27). In April 1997, the program received the award for Theatrical Excellence at the Connecticut Drama Association festival. In March, 2002, GHS returned to the CDA festival and took virtually every top honor. In March, 2004, GHS returned to festival again, and again received first place honors. In March, 2004, GHS returned to festival again, and again received first place honors. In March of 2005 and March, 2006, we received our fourth and fifth Awards for Theatrical Excellence.
In the last twelve years alone, GHS students have won forty-five places in competitions. No other public high school in the state offers so many productions every year, including our annual Shakespeare Play (our 26th this year) and our annual musical. In addition to three outstanding mainstage productions, we offer four showcase presentations which are open to any student who makes the commitment to the rehearsal and preparation process. Since auditions for specific roles are not part of these productions, we can feature a great number of talented students. Productions such as these are each unique in Connecticut. This new kind of show started with the addition of our production of original works, known as Magic Circle, in April of 1993. In February of 1994, we added Broadway Musical Revue, which was a production for freshmen and other first?time GHS performers; it featured musical numbers from classic and current Broadway hits. The revue format eventually evolved into a workshop musical, and subsequently became known as Broadway Musical Workshop. In December of 1994, we added the very successful Comedy Tonight!, a showcase for the GHS Improv Troupe, which is renowned as a model for other such high school groups. Our regular technical crew is almost forty hard-working students.
The academic program for Theater Arts consists of eight performance and training courses and two backstage courses, and several honors level courses offering a variety of challenging and creative opportunities for learning the art and craft of theater. Our growing academic program has over three hundred students enrolled in courses each semester. Virtually all of the courses are open to first time students as well as students with experience; students are challenged as their ability and experience allow. All courses have as their fundamental goals: teaching students to work creatively and cooperatively, liberating and focusing expression, and developing confidence and mutual respect. We strongly believe that the ?qualities needed for the best acting are also those needed for the fullest living: awareness, sensitivity, freedom, and the self-confidence that comes from the knowledge that every one of us is a unique individual, with a valuable role to play, if we can become ourselves enough to find it, and accept it.?
Theater is a complex and synthetic field which embraces or involves just about every area of study which may be found in the curriculum. Drama is particularly well adapted to the classroom envisioned in much of contemporary education theory: it encourages active learning and provides opportunities for meeting the needs of different learning styles. By necessity it involves collaboration, with each individual contributing uniquely to the group?s production. At its best, it integrates reading, writing, speaking, and listening in genuine communication acts, creating an authenticity of accomplishment unsurpassed by any other school activity. The work of theater challenges and integrates the intellectual, creative, and personal aspects of its participants.
In 2009-10, the program has the services of two teachers, Ms. Patricia Cirigliano and Mr. Richard Kohn, as well as the part-time services of a third teacher, Ms. Marie Shimchick, and one full-time technical director, Mr. Scott Borowka. Mr. Jeffrey Spector and Ms. Brigid Barry share administrative responsibility for Theater Arts. Both Ms. Cirigliano and Mr. Kohn have been recognized by the Greenwich Public Schools as Distinguished Teachers. In 1999, Mr. Kohn has also received the Mary Hunter Wolf Award from the Long Wharf Theater for excellence in theater education and production; and in 2003 he received the Educatonal Theater associations award for continued education leadership.
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10 Hillside Road, Greenwich, CT 06830