This Thursday and Friday night, June 6 and 7 at 7 pm in the FHS Cafeteria, you can witness first hand the power of project based learning at FHS. SIX the Musical is not only the first performance of this production in the state of New Hampshire, but it was a completely student driven, student created and student led project! FHS has been innovative with their scheduling and the Portrait of a Graduate work in project based learning, and this project is a showcase of that type of learning. When the FHS Officers saw that the rights for SIX the Musical, Teen Edition were available, they jumped at the chance to at least try for the rights. When they surprisingly got them from Concord Theatricals, the company that owns the show, they knew they wanted to produce the amazing new rock musical, but already had a full season planned- so it became an additional project for a few dedicated members to take on.
From there, the decision was to turn the project into an actual class for the last quarter and combine it with history, so that the research behind SIX, the story of Henry VIII's 6 wives and their relationships with him and English history could be studies and applied to the production. Under the supervision of their theater advisor, they enlisted the support of music teacher Ariel Braggins and history teacher Kevin DeLange to create a Theater History class where they met twice a week to work on the show from the technical and historical side and once their main spring musical ended in early May, they also began meeting after school to rehearse the choreography and blocking on stage together.
The end of the school year becomes very hectic, especially for seniors, of which this production involves 5. Libby Femenella, who directed and did choreography and plays Anna of Cleves, Leah Cote who plays Catherine of Aragon and Kadance Laro who did choreography and plays Anne Boleyn are all seniors. Kayli-Ann Foskey, who did all the technical design work and Nox McDonald who took on the costume design work, with specific licensing directions that they were not allowed to copy the West End designs in any way are also seniors. Finishing up the group are juniors Zoe Nagle playing Jane Seymour, Lily Buker who plays Catherine Parr and Kaia Roper who was Producer and jumped in to play Katherine Howard after losing a cast mate half way through the project. Finishing up the group is freshman Ollie Foskey who took on sound design.
The group has not only learned theater and history, but also numerous skills that come from any theatrical production process: resilience, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, creativity, adaptability, time management, teamwork, analytical skills, commitment, speech, working under pressure, listening, flexibility, criticism, empathy and of course building confidence. All transferable skills that will benefit them in life. Project based learning and seeing the culmination of the work of these students is incredible, and we encourage you to take the time to stop and see it. The performance begins at 7 pm and runs an hour and 15 minutes with no intermission. Special thanks to their community partners: Footlight Theater, Dan Darling, Wayne Fajans, Robbie LaFlamme, RJ Soboslai and Andrew Gagnon for all their help and support.
