 Imagine leaving the Circle and walking down the boathouse road all the way to the
Nashua River, and instead of passing through a deep forest with sunlight shining
through the trees, you go by 130 elegant new homes. Or imagine approaching the
School from the town of Ayer, and instead of passing the old apple orchard with
Mt. Wachusett off in the distance, you see 136 more. That wonderful woodland walk
and the classical New England vista, which are so much a part of the Groton School
experience, would both be gone forever.
This is the threat that Groton School faced with the passing in 1998 of Marion
Danielson Campbell, former faculty wife, Groton School Trustee, parent, and
benefactor for whom the Campbell Performing Arts Center is named.
continued
Engaged
This winter, the Groton Drama Program will stage Engaged, a play that
W.S. Gilbert wrote without Arthur Sullivan. Although Gilbert is remembered
now almost solely for his Sullivan collaborations (Engaged opened
several months before H.M.S. Pinafore, the first big Gilbert and
Sullivan hit), this much lesser known work is a great piece of English comedy,
a satire of Victorian and perhaps our own conventions of love and money,
that served as a direct inspiration for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of
Being Earnest.
The play is set in Scotland and England, and students are working with Nina
Pleasance, a dialect coach from Boston University, to master the accents the
play requires. (Pleasance has her own deep Groton connections: her father
was once Groton's business manager, and she grew up on campus.) Thanks to
the Pond Family Fund, Emmy Award-winning set designer Jenna McFarland, a
professor of theater arts at Stonehill College, is working with students to
design the scenery and locate furniture and set pieces. Sixth Former Janice
He, who has been working under Catherine Coursaget's tutelage in the costume
shop for several years, is designing and constructing several of the period
costumes.
The performances on are Friday and Saturday, February 16 and 17, at 7:30 p.m.,
and Sunday, February 18, at 3 p.m. You can reserve tickets by calling
978-448-7284 or ordering them online at
www.groton.org/boxoffice.
School Trip to Boston: Boston Philharmonic
On February 22, the entire Groton School community will leave the Circle
for an evening at the symphony with the Boston Philharmonic and conductor
Ben Zander. The program is filled with gems of the Romantic period: Ludwig
van Beethoven's Egmont Overture and his Violin Concerto, as well as
Symphony No. 5 by Jean Sibelius. Maestro Zander's pre-concert talk
and riveting performances of these masterpieces will certainly create
a memorable and enjoyable evening. To learn more about this performance,
view the Program Notes
for Concert #3 of the Boston Philharmonic's 2006-2007 season.
Groton School Community Service members overflowed with holiday spirit as they
loaded and stacked "Blizzard Boxes" for area senior citizens. More than 100 boxes—filled
with emergency supplies to use in the event of inclement weather—were packed over
the course of the evening under the direction of faculty advisor Sarah Webb
and with the leadership of Rodney Smith '08 and Mary Cooper '08.
A GCS team also rolled up their sleeves and donned elf caps when they visited
Loaves & Fishes, a local food pantry, for the pantry's annual 'Shop for Your
Kids' Day. Janet Adeola '11, Becca Brown '11, Marcel Romero '11, SoonKyu
Park '09, and Theo Frelinghuysen '08 set to work sorting over 400 toys,
games, and craft items all to be offered to invited area parents who needed extra
help providing for their children this past holiday season. When the toys ran out,
our ever-helpful volunteers pitched in to shelve 20 bags of groceries that
had just been delivered.
On Monday, January 15, the School suspended classes to engage in a day-long
series of workshops on diversity and difference. The observance began Sunday
evening with a film series that included The Motorcycle Diaries
(for upper schoolers), Water, Seoul Train, and School Ties,
and other movies, all of which shared diverse global perspectives. The
highlight of the School's observances was a performance by Steven Tejada
following a series of musical numbers including the Jazz band's rendition of
James Brown's "I Feel Good."
Tejada is an actor, writer, speaker, and activist, touring for the past four
years with his one-man show, "Boogie Down Journeys." Written, directed,
and performed by Tejada, the show focuses on the powerful experiences of
various people of color, most of whom he met while growing up in the South
Bronx. The performance combines comedy and drama to discover stories of
struggle, survival, love, and laughter. Steven shared a portion of his larger
performance, centering on a conversation he has with a friend from the
neighborhood as he waits for his bus which will take him to college in
Connecticut and his first year of school. The friend laments the main
character's choice of a college so far away from the neighborhood in the
alien land of Connecticut. In a monologue that is both funny and painful to
hear, one is introduced to a contradictory character comprised of equal parts
bravado and hopelessness that predominated Tejada's younger years in the
South Bronx. He has performed at numerous venues throughout the country,
including Cornell University, Yale University, Boston University, Williams
College, and Northeastern University.
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West Coast Receptions
The Groton family gathered earlier this month at two receptions in Los Angeles and San
Francisco to renew friendships and to hear about life on the Circle.
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Please help us reach our goal
by giving to the
Annual Fund today.
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Tournament results:
