Posts

Spotlight on the Lower School Show

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This year I have had the opportunity to work with the lower school students on their wonderful After School fall show, The Twelve Dancing Princesses . I am the Production Assistant for the show. As somebody who has worked with Bonny in the Rashi School Theater Program for a very long time, I love seeing all the students show their love for theater every Monday. It brings me so much joy when I get to work with them and give them acting advice, the helpful tips and tricks that I was taught when I was younger by the student leader helping out. I love being able to work with the students and gain closer bonds with them as both a regular student and a role model. I choose to work with these students because I know how fun and exciting drama can be especially when you are a part of a younger age group. I feel like the older you get the more awkward or ¨embarrassing” certain shows and roles can be, which can affect your acting because it might be a little out of your comfort zone. This parti
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Spotlight on the Middle School Fall Play

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The Middle School After School Drama Elective will be presenting "The Trumpet of the Swan" in November and the students are hard at work staging, designing, creating and learning many theater skills that can be used during the performance process.  The following information has been submitted by our Grade 8 Student Officers who are members of the International Thespian Society (ITS) in the Rashi Middle School Theater Program.  As we get ready for our Fall show, we’d like to share a little bit about how we’ve been preparing for it in the tech booth. The lighting system is mostly up and running again as it was taken down at the end of last year for lighting maintenance. We’ve been working to arrange it in a way that is comfortable for the technicians in the Tech Booth to be able to program the lights for the show. We’ve also been gathering and designing the sound cues, and we’re getting ready to program them into the soundboard.  Ari I - ITS President - Class of '24 In the
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Behind the scenes of the Rashi Theater Program

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The Rashi Theater Program is off to a great start for the 2023-24 season. Along with grade level plays that happen throughout the school year, we have a very busy elective program.  In the Middle School, the students are working hard both in-school and after-school on the production of "he Trumpet of  the Swan.   After-school there are 27 students, in Grades 5-8, that are working on both the staging of the show as well as the technical production.  Twelve Dancing Princess Cast The After School Drama elective for Lower School will present, Twelve Dancing Princesses  in December. There are already 24 students, in Grades 3-5, on Mondays, busy working on staging. The Middle School students, in Grades 6-8, support the show during their electives programs.  MS Afterschool Technical Elective The Tuesday Middle School elective is working on props and costumes for The Trumpet of the Swan .  They use the Design Thinking Protocol to understand the needs of the show. Students researched the f
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Rashi Student Playwrights

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Rehearsal for Grade 2 play  As part of the Rashi Theater Program students learn the skill of playwriting.  This process starts in Grade 2 with their work, "Diary of a Rashi Second Grader." In this process the students learn about monologues and dialogues and how to write in the basic playwriting format.  In Grade 2, the diary entries become their monologue.  Monologues are a great way to talk about emotions and express what the "character" is thinking.  They learn that dialogues are just a conversation.  We work on this process together as a big group and we spend time talking about the possible topics for the dialogues and then brainstorm character options, setting options and list a few facts that can become the main part of a character's speech. Students learn that anything can speak in a play, yes even a rock or the Charles River.  The best part is watching the "voice" of the character come alive as they practice saying the line and writing what th
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International Thespian Induction Ceremony

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This past Sunday after the last Middle School performance of "Once Upon a Mattress", nine Middle School Students were inducted in the International Thespian Society.  This organization recognizes excellence in theater for both Middle and High School Students.  Rashi has been a member of this organization for nineteen years.  To become a member students must be in at least two full length productions in the areas of acting and technical work.  Many students earn their membership participating in their sixth grade year by participating in the Fall Play, State Drama Festival and Spring Musical.  Students are eligible to use all three years of Middle School to earn their membership.  Students in Grade 8 are eligible to become officers of the Rashi Theater Troupe and are elected by the outgoing slate of officers.  The officers plan the theater trip, invite alumni back to shows and help to oversee the running of the drama festival.  A few years ago the officers voted to allow point
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Rashi Wins Gold at State Drama Festival and Monologue Writing Contest

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  The Rashi Middle School won a Gold medal this weekend at the State Drama Festival.  The cast and crew of "Skidmarks, A Play about Driving" performed at Dover Sherborn Middle School on Sunday with five other schools from around the State.  The judging is done with professional adjudicators with a rubric and Rashi finished with a high score in the Gold medal Category.  Rashi also walked away with the Stage Manager's Award, a coveted award that is presented by the Stage manager of the Host school to the school that showed excellence in management of their backstage during the performance as well as the technical rehearsal.  This is the 2nd year in a row that Rashi has earned this award. Congrats!! There were also three All-Star Acting awards presented to Oliver L, Nate P and Stella S for their strong character work as well as their ability to play multiple characters during the show.   The students had a great day watching all the other shows as well as participating in a
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Middle School State Drama Festival

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Eleven Rashi Middle School students will be participating in the Massachusetts State Middle School Drama Festival this weekend.  The Festival is held at 6 different sites across Eastern MA.  We will be at the Dover Sherborn Middle School site on Sunday, May 7th at 2PM.  Our one Act Play, "Skidmarks, A Play About Driving" by Lindsey Price was chosen by the Middle School Festival Elective as one of three possible choices.  The entire elective is student run with Bonny, the Director and Mike, the Tech Director acting as advisors on the process. The students choose the show, cast the show, design the show and stage the show.  The students have learned how difficult it is to a choose a show that has enough to do for all the actors, designers and technicians.  Many of the Grade 8 students have leadership positions such as the Stage Manager or the Student Stage Director, but even some of the Grade 6 or 7 students have taken on the job of coordinating costumes and props or designing
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