Months of preparation, hours of practice, and days of full rehearsals, all lead to the moment of coming on stage for the opening scene. The stage is well-lit, and the actors are in full costume, ready to put on a show. Eleven moons hang above them, to represent the Eleven scenes in the show, the curtain has opened, and the show has begun.
The Jemicy School is well known for always putting on high-quality and fascinating performances from the theater program. I had the opportunity to talk to a handful of people about the upcoming performance of A Trip to the Moon by Tracy Wells. I talked to the new director of the theater program Mr. Buchanan, the head of Upper School Ms. Heard, and a student who has put extra time and effort into making the play another incredible experience. It’s fascinating how important the theater program is to the Jemicy School and the number of students working to put on the best show possible.
This school year the theater program has experienced a new change. Mr. Buchanan has become the new director of the program. Ms. Heard said, “he has really been a shot in the arm.” She added, “he has brought a lot to the program.” Mr. Buchanan has a fascinating background.
Before coming to Jemicy Mr.Buchanan was the director of theater arts at Mount St Joseph University. He started a theater program there, which he had slowly been building up over the past few years. Another past job he held was a clown doctor. He worked at Cincinnati children’s hospital to bring as he put it, “joy and silliness,” to people’s lives. When he saw the job posting at Jemicy last spring and had been thinking of coming back to his home state of Maryland. He was excited to come back when he was offered an interview. “Everyone has been so kind and fun to be around here,” he said. He also expressed that, “it has been phenomenal, everyone has been supportive and kind.” Previously he was working with college students and it was a nighttime job; it’s been a long time since he had the early morning job. He said something he likes at Jemicy is he can work at the pace of the work, “in my classes things don’t have to be finished by a certain date,” and he does not feel rushed if there is more for the students to learn. When asked if he had anything else to share he said, “I did not get into theater until high school. Until freshman year, you could not drag me on stage, I would have been too nervous. I was so shy.” He said that seeing what his path has been like means that if anyone wants to be on stage there is a spot for them.
Mr. Buchanan’s background has allowed him to bring a lot of valuable qualities to Jemicy. The theater program is putting on a show on November 4th and 5th, A Trip to the Moon. The lead-up to the play is very busy for students, taking the whole day Friday (November 4th) to practice instead of attending classes.
When I asked Mr. Buchanan if there was a student we could highlight for working extra hard or contributing something extra special to the performance, he said that all the students had put a ton of work into making this the best show possible, however, he said specifically that 10th grader Julia Berman had contributed some extra work. I reached out to her and she told me about the different things she has done for the play, saying, “along with having acting roles in [A Trip to the Moon], I also choreographed the dance scene in the show. I have spent many hours on the dance choreographing, teaching, and perfecting the dance over the couple of months that we have been rehearsing.” Mr. Buchanan later told me that it’s, “a lot of extra work for a student, taking extra time and effort to do that.” When I asked her what she wanted to tell folks who are on the fence about coming to the play she said, “they definitely should! There are a bunch of different scenes that show the time period of the moon landing and there is a really fun dance number.” I then asked Mr. Buchanan the same question, what would he want to tell someone who is questioning coming to see the show? He said, “if you are a music lover, if you love history, if you like laughing, then come see our show, it moves really quickly, and our actors are really talented. It’s only about 1 and a half hours of your evening.” There are a total of about 18 actors in the show and another 12-16 working on the crew, ready to put on a fantastic show.
When talking to Ms. Heard, who is celebrating 50 years in education this school year, she shared, “As the head of the upper school, one of the most important things is that we have a lot of different ways students can achieve success.” The Jemicy School has a fantastic athletic program, a great visual arts program, and as Ms. Heard said, “the theater arts just rounds that out for us because the students can find so many ways to express themselves.” She added, “for me, it helps to bring to light the importance of a very well-rounded arts and sports extra curriculum program at our school and the arts program has always received a lot of acknowledgment.” We talked about how there has always been a large interest in the theater program. When the world stopped with COVID they had to cancel the spring production and the play the following fall. But the interest was always there, “they just could not maintain… it was not possible to maintain the theater arts program.” she said. Ms. Heard will always help out however she can one of the nights, then takes another to sit back and enjoy the show.
When you are trying to put on a show like this, issues can come up, Mr. Buchanan expressed that there have not been many at all. However he did say that “We have had some occasional issues with shipping,” some things they ordered are still stuck in shipping. “3 pieces of furniture from Ikea, which were ordered at the very beginning of September,” he said they still hadn’t received. “So that’s a little stressful because you don’t have any control over that,” he added.
When asked about the musical in the spring Mr. Buchanan said, he has a couple of plays that are in the hopper as ideas for the musical. He wanted to get to know the students at Jemicy to see their strengths and interests, and when you go to license a play, you need the company that owns it to say yes. He hopes to make an announcement before winter break. Julia Berman said, “I hope the musical in the spring has fun dance and singing numbers.”
The show was a huge success, opening night was a hit and the audience was very pleased with the performance. Walking out of the theater you could hear, “wow, what a great show,” and, “It just kept getting better and better!” As well as, “wonderful performance!”
With a Friday and Saturday night show, the cast and crew put on a great performance. As Mr. Buchanan said, “I am very pleased with how the show went. I believe that our cast, crew, and technicians did a phenomenal job, and I am very proud of their work. I really appreciate the positive support and feedback from the Jemicy community.” The theater program has once again proven itself to contain great talent. Now it’s time to start planning the spring musical!
MOOSE PRINTS 
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