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 the lights and sounds. Once the concept of the stage design was decided, many of the students have been actively painting or making the T-shirts in the Kol-lab with the Cricut machines.
Students spent their one hour technical time at Dover-Sherborn on Wednesday checking out the new theater space. They spent an hour spiking the stage where their scenery needs to be set up, checking out sound levels with the sound board, programming light cues and learning how to project their voices without microphones to fill the theater that they will perform in on Sunday. The cast and crew worked together on the project as some of the Grade 7 students are on a school trip this week, so others were following notes and programming the design that was created.
Cast and Crew had an informal dress rehearsal this past Friday in which the entire Middle School was invited. The MS students, faculty and some parents acted as the judges for this rehearsal. They gave feedback to the cast and crew so that they can make the appropriate changes that will be needed to give them a more polished performance. This Sunday the Cast and Crew will be receiving feedback from professional adjudicators from around the state. The feedback will be checked against a rubric and hopefully The Rashi School will bring home a Gold Award and numerous All-Star Awards. We invite you to come and see our performance!!
Submitted by Bonny Parlee and Maddy Solomon (Grade 8)
