SAA Students Showcase Artistic Accomplishments in Visual and Performing Arts

There are children who would be perfectly content to spend three weeks of their summer just “hanging out.” For those who prefer to spend their time delving into a dizzying array of artistic pursuits, there is the Simsbury Arts Academy (SAA).

For three weeks at Simsbury High School during the past nine summers, SAA has offered K-12 students from all over the Farmington Valley arts enrichment and education. SAA’s diverse, disability-friendly environment is ideal for children to find new ways to express themselves or improve their skills with an artistic passion that they have already discovered. A professional faculty, all experts in the fields of visual arts, strings, musical theater, fashion design, and jazz, are there to nurture the students’ budding artistic talents. Different areas of study are grouped into “academies,” which give students the freedom to focus on one particular artistic area or cross over to sample many forms of visual arts, music, or performing arts.

Among other activities, this year students had the chance to produce and market their own comic book, write and act out a script, design dresses for a fashion show, perform jazz or play in an orchestra or chamber ensemble for their families and friends, and act and sing in an ambitious musical production.

Said SAA Director Shannon Gagne, “It has been a busy and productive summer for students and teachers attending the Simsbury Arts Academy. This year we had 121 students attend. I am so proud of the hard work and creativity of the staff and students.”

In a letter to staff, Gagne acknowledged the dedication and talent of Simsbury Public Schools staff in “creating quality arts education for all students attending SAA”—and she had already begun making a list of ways to make the program even better next year!

The three weeks of the SAA program culminated in “SAA Performance Days” on July 27 and 28, to which families and friends were invited to experience the students’ artistic accomplishments. On Thursday morning in the main lobby, tables were bursting with hand-drawn mini comic books, which sold for 25 cents each, the proceeds of which will go to fund tuition for a future SAA camper in need. Supportive cheers broke out when one fifth grader Ronin Davis achieved a sell-out of his comic, “Captain Bananas.”

Ceramic pieces, game boards, and 2-dimensional art of all kinds adorned the lobby. The band room was the setting for groups bitten by the acting bug, who performed for small but enthusiastic audiences. The open doors of the Library Media Center lured visitors in with the jazz beats of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk and the dulcet tones of the chamber ensembles and orchestra.

This year’s Musical Theater Academy’s production was Legally Blonde Jr, based on the Golden Globe-nominated 2001 film Legally Blonde. It is an upbeat story with a determined blonde heroine, Elle Woods. The musical is frequently produced in high schools across America, which made this production, put together in just three weeks, all the more impressive. During the dress rehearsal the morning of the show, Director Michael Hunter apologized for the few parts of the set that were not quite done, “guaranteeing that it would all come together for the performance” at 7PM Friday night. An apparent understatement, he said, “These kids have worked tremendously hard.”

Whether facing the fear of forgetting a line during a performance of a skit, mastering a new piece of music on the violin, learning a new technique with digital media, or simply overcoming shyness to make new friends, SAA students had much to be proud of. Legally Blonde Jr’s Elle Woods’ journey of self-improvement could be said to parallel the students’ experience in SAA this summer. As the lyrics of her song “So Much Better” declared, “I am so much better than before!”