Save the date for our 10th Anniversary Gala Celebration

Mark your calendars now: Nov.20, 2010.

On the closing night of our fall production, we will officially celebrate our 10th anniversary of APR Theatre! Join us for a revival production of The Dining Room (our 1st APR production in 2001) on Nov.18-20 at the Academy of the Pacific Rim.

We are looking forward to reuniting with our Thespian alumni and honoring the growth of our program in the past 9+ years. Please pass along the information to anyone and everyone in our APR community! It will be an evening of celebration and pride as we reflect on how far we've come. (We started with a small empty room and only 15 people with a simple dream of theatre at APR and we've grown into a program spanning grades 5-12 with a stage, lights, and a huge space in which to perform! There's no stopping us now!)

More details about this very special celebration and ticket information will be released this fall. For now, save the date and we'll see you there!

Reflections on 9+ years of APR theatre

As we prepare to enter our 10th anniversary season of APR theatre, I've been reflecting on where we started and how far we've come in just nine years. I came to APR entrusted by Spencer Blasdale and Piel Hollingsworth to start a theatre program. What began with teaching middle school drama classes during the day and a handful of dramatic high school students after school has blossomed into something amazing. We started with an empty small cafeteria and roughly 15 students who wanted to put together some simple productions, which is how The Dining Room came to be, with a borrowed table and china cabinet and some rented portable stage lights. Within 2 years, we founded our own HS Thespian Troupe with just a few members and started a winter tradition of student directors experimenting with writing and directing one act productions. In 2008, we made our next big leap by purchasing our own portable stage, curtains, and expanding our lighting system to accommodate our new shared performance space in a new Multipurpose Room (a.k.a. the "Great Room"). And as we moved into our 2009-10 season, we launched our next expansion of our theatre program offerings with Zoom Into Productions by Students (ZIPS) allowing our HS Thespians an opportunity to have complete creative control in their own spring productions.

Who would have believed that a small charter public school in Hyde Park, MA could come so far in so little time. I find myself standing in awe and so proud of what we, together as a school community, have built and where we are going in the years to come.

Many thanks to everyone, current students & families, alumni, and our adoring fans at APR!

Welcome!

Can you believe it? It's new, it's different, it's taking APR Theatre into a whole new dimension! This blog will be our new up to the minute place to give our public the latest news and information on our program and events. It will also give us a place for students and families to comment on our events, offerings, and even classroom projects. I'm looking forward to seeing how our students will once again help to shape how we study drama and examine with a critical eye all things theatre!