Category: Arts & Entertainment

By Chiara Volonakis ‘29

Each fall term, Wyoming Seminary’s players and crew put on a fantastic musical performance, complete with heartwrenching (or heartwarming) scenes, captivating songs, and crisp choreography, all surrounded by a beautiful set. This season, students, faculty, family, friends, and the ghosts hiding in the rafters of the KCCA had the pleasure of seeing Little Women: The Broadway Musical. To the innocent audience – who have not yet experienced the nightmare that is tech week or the struggles of remembering dozens of lines, lyrics, and scene changes – a school musical just seems like a fun way to support your classmates. But putting on a musical in less than two months is a lot harder than it seems like on stage. Let this article be a behind-the-scenes look into what that cast and crew of Little Women really had to go through.

When asked what the hardest part of performing in Little Women was, Sophia Roper ‘28 (who played Amy, one of the four March sisters) instantly replied “the harmonies in ‘Five Forever’ are really bad.” When the audience hears these songs for the first time, they often neglect the hours of rehearsal it took to make the notes sound so powerful. All this practice can be quite taxing, which was expressed by Jack Seltzer ‘30, Laurie’s actor. As the only freshman in the cast, Jack’s biggest struggle was “the amount of rehearsals… It’s a lot.” As the show dates grew closer, the amount of time spent practicing scenes grew as well, until the eventual five and a half hour long tech rehearsals. Throughout all this, performers are also trying to grow into their character’s role. Sadie Poepperling ‘27, who played multiple roles, said that she struggles with “trying to improve yourself without getting embarrassed.”

An actor might seem flawless, with memorized lines and on-point character notes, but Sadie made it clear that “you can’t just start good at everything.” It’s not just the cast that struggled to put on this performance. Ellen Sherry, Little Women’s costumer, spoke about how much of a struggle it was to research time-period accurate outfits for the actors, “Sherrys are sticklers for the details!” she exclaimed, and this is proven true by the stunning rental costumes the actors wore. Every piece of the set needed period accuracy as well in order for the performance to feel right. 

Now, audience, you may be wondering, why would anyone sign up for this torture? A fair question. Maybe it’s something you can only experience once you’ve put in the countless hours, maybe thespians are just crazy. But there’s something about that final moment, when all your hard work has finally paid off.

By Nancy Dahal ‘28

Once again, the AP Studio Art class has brought us an incredible show. The Season of the Witch, a magnificent showcase featuring works by a multitude of students, took place prior to this Halloween in the Kirby Center for Creative Arts featuring works by a multitude of students. From beautiful paintings to charcoal sketches and everything in between, this diverse and astounding display is truly a testament to the hard work of all of the artists involved. 

Though the students dedicated much of their time to their pieces, none of this would have been possible without the instruction of their teacher Ms. Ayers. With her expertise, students have been able to create created works that are both beautiful to look at and technically brilliant. From incredible self portraits to stunning landscapes and focused objects, the show contains a diverse display of subjects and matters – yet, they are all tied by the amount of skill and precision required to create each one. Fitting into the theme, Elsie Salesky ‘28 described her beautiful painting of a beautiful fiddle which she describes “My piece in the show is an acrylic painting of a violin. It was inspired by a piece the orchestra is playing called ‘Witches’ Fiddle,’ and in it, I tried to capture the highlights of the violin and the shadows which fade into the background, creating what I hope is a spooky and realistic painting.”

As well as an extensively thought out and executed process, many of the works contain deep and personal themes relevant to the artist. Some may be objects that the artist admired and others may feature locations that resonate sentimentally. Regardless of subject matter, all of the pieces are incredibly thought provoking! Ashmary Cummings ‘27 painted a wonderful rendition of a woman playing the violin pictured above. “Our show’s guiding theme was ‘Witch’s Fiddle’ and I think most other artists played into the spooky, more Halloween aspect of that theme. Nothing wrong with that, I just wanted to explore something different. I was really inspired by Stevie Nicks, and how she’s frequently called the white witch. I wanted to portray that idea of magic without mainstream imagery. The kind of magic that happens when you can create music from nothing but your instrument. Working with the oil pastels was really fun, nothing a medium I’m super familiar with, so it was nice to explore how things blend and move. It was a very hands on process, I’d use my fingers for smudging and detailing. Overall I’m pretty happy with the piece, it was fun to do,” She explained.

Across all of the different works at the showcase, the AP Art Class has clearly put a copious amount of much hard work into these projects. All of these efforts certainly do show in the display, which is a recommendation for all students to go admire. The entire SEM community should all look forward to what these artists have to bring in the future as well as they move forward and onto new horizons!