Performances by 3rd and 5th grades on Friday, January 29, kicked off Lower School's Dessert Theatre Season in the Louisa Performing Arts Center. Dessert Theatre, which began nearly 50 years ago at CSS, allows students as early as Kindergarten in the Lower School division the freedom to explore the world through characters while solving problems and growing their communication skills and confidence.
In Aunt Rhodie's Diet, the 3rd and 5th grades were combined. While 3rd graders worked on lines and characters with Director Rachel Pratt, 5th graders learned and practiced more than 10 songs with Band Director Brent Moorhead to accompany the script. The music helps to immerse the audience in this funny play about farmer and animal-lover Aunt Rhodie as she tries to raise enough money to save her farm. Unfortunately, her very large appetite gets the better of her, and she nearly destroys her farm in the process!
America, My Home: Immigration Stories complements the 5th-grade social studies curriculum on immigration studies to immerse the class in a theatre performance with original scenes written by the students themselves. Students researched European countries and developed their characters' immigration stories – focusing on why people immigrate, what it was like to come through both Ellis Island and Angel Island in the early 1900s, and what life was like post-immigrating. Students took on their fictitious characters during the Ellis Island simulation a few weeks prior to this performance, during which they transitioned step-by-step through the processing experience witnessed by so many upon arriving in America.
