Principal’s Message
Welcome to Magee Mainstage’s Revue!
Magee Mainstage is a drama specialization program within our school’s community: Students who choose this specialization work intensively under the supervision of two master teachers - Ms. Byrne and Mr. Waterman - laddering their skills from entry in grade 11 to graduation. An important part of the Mainstage program is an annual Musical. For this, Mainstage students work consistently as a team in an increasingly high stakes environment on a single project across six months to deliver a performance that is as accomplished as any professional production anywhere in the world.
To accomplish this, Ms. Byrne and Mr. Waterman draw in their contacts and colleagues who are professionals in the industry. Through these partnerships we have been able to extend our skills and expertise and enrich our students' experience, and model to our students the process of collaboration and extended teamwork in project delivery.
But Covid brought unexpected challenges to the performing arts, challenges that are shared by our Magee Drama students: from the abrupt cancellation of performances; the erasure of opportunities to attend professional theater during fieldtrips; the closure of rehearsal space; the switch to online and asynchronous instruction and practicing. In all this, these kids stuck with it - they adapted, they were flexible, and, under Ms. Byrne and Mr. Waterman’s mentorship, went on to revision their program while holding onto the camaraderie that is Mainstage.
Some of the revisioning included mini-performances and workshops filmed, edited and uploaded to social media. A major change was to rethink the traditional large cast musical. Ms. Byrne and Mr. Waterman reversed the equation: take highlights from every musical performed over the past 20 years and have different students take the lead roles. In this way, many more actors had the opportunity to take a lead role, and the practice sessions are limited to their half-sized cohorts to prevent Covid transmission. And to address the inability to have live performances: film the review and upload it to a ticketed and secure site.
Innovation, flexibility, commitment, trust: the response to Covid illustrated in this review by these kids. This could only be achieved with the support of our industry mentors, Ms. Byrne and Mr. Waterman. Thank you for your incredible dedication and support.
And to our students: Congratulations on a remarkable achievement!!
Dr. Andrew Schofield
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