WAMS Summer Arts Program Share Day Exhibit

The Waterbury Arts Magnet School Summer Arts Program is for students in Grades 6 to 12. The Share Day Exhibit is the culminating activity of the program and took place on Thursday morning on and around the Apron Stage at the school.

Visual Arts included making jewelry, creating with clay, and Anime Cartooning and they work were on display in the Mirrored Lobby for the Art Show part of the morning.

The students in theater arts chose between the performance aspect and the production aspect of theater and prepared a modified version of the musical Shrek billed as Shrek The Mini Musical. All students interested in performing were given the opportunity to audition for acting, singing and dancing roles in the musical during the first day of the program, and all students that auditioned were placed in the show. The students interested in the technical and production aspects of the program were trained for tech and production and assigned to roles to assure that the show was fully supported. Then they had exactly nine days to rehearse and present the show. This could not have been an easy task, considering the size of the production, but every student rose to the challenge.

The mini musical was directed by Mr. Scott Schulte with Ms. Marianna Vagnini-Dadamo serving as the vocal instructor and musical director and Ms. Brighid Thompson serving as the choreographer. Nolan Cummings was the assistant director (and had a cameo as the king) and Hannah Bellows did the costumes. The large set was designed by Michelle LeBlanc and Shelby Griffin and Tyla Risucci were the dance captains of the eight Duloc Dancers.

This Shrek included many of the recognizable pieces and the numbers were cobbled together by narration by Jayde Blanchette and Katherine Ross. There was “Big Bright Beautiful World,” “I Know It’s Today,” “Who I’d Be,” “Freak Flag,” and “Let Your Freak Flag Fly.”

Every one of the students who played the fairy tale creatures did a great job. Chris Briney was the little Lord Farquaad and Ms. Blanchette also covered the role of Fairy Godmother. Thomas Hutchinson was Pinocchio and Vincent Dadamo played both the Big Bad Wolf and Papa Ogre. Gangeeta Kasinath was little Shrek.

The three Fionas were played in ascending order by Sofia Dadamo, Alexa Lewis and Emma Lewis. Robert Guerin played the role of Donkey and Liam Alldredge, a rising junior at WAMS, put on the green face paint to play the role of the big ogre himself. He proved himself to be a fine comic actor and a wonderful singer.

Judging by the smiles on the cast members and artists after the Share Day, everyone involved had a great two weeks at WAMS. Kudos to each and every one and the adults that worked with them.