Belfry’s newest production is coming to GA soon!
This year, members of GA’s Belfry Club are putting together a Germantown Academy Fringe Festival. This year’s performance format will be different given the shorter time span for preparation and the absence of K. Richardson.
Belfry faculty directors, Charlie Masters and Paul Moffitt, came up with the plan of the Fringe Festival while searching for an interim teacher. Instead of everyone working on one big script, individuals or small groups will choose something to perform for the festival. The Fringe Festival will be like a “variety show, a showcase type cabaret performance that will run the gamut of performing arts,” said lead Belfry director Emma Hearn. So far, a lot of students are coming to Hearn with ideas of whom they want to work with, or what they want to perform. Types of performances include scenes from popular plays, skits, songs, dances, and more. Hearn hopes that this is an opportunity both for the newcomers to get their feet wet and the seniors to enjoy their final performance.
In May 2020, Belfry put together a remarkable performance of Into the Woods Jr. that was held outside. However, this time the performance will be hosted indoors in the Arts Center. The recent pop assembly was also conducted in the Arts Center, which means that being outdoors for a performance is no longer an issue that the Belfry club has to face. Along with the Fringe Festival, there is also a spring musical being planned for this year.
The biggest concern with the production right now is timing. Due to Hurricane Ida and the necessary restoration of the Arts Center, Hearn said, “the club has around three weeks to put the production together, and one week to put it on the stage with technical elements, with this timeframe allowing it to be ready for GA-PC weekend.” Will Cooper, one of the two Belfry captains, expressed, “Normally with our shows, production work would have started a few weeks ago. But due to complications with our director, we weren’t able to start until now.” He said that rehearsals have only started in mid-October, which makes their timeline much shorter than usual.
With this specific project, kids are allowed to be creative and choose what they want to perform. As Cooper said, “It is up to us for what we want to do. It’s up to us to organize what we want to do, recruit people, and learn the entire performance mostly on our own because the teachers can only help so much with individual performances.” Combined with the time issue, “every cast member is going to have to be really independent and efficient with what they choose to perform, and how they plan to learn it in order to be ready on time.”
That being said, look out for the Germantown Academy Fringe Festival on the 12th and 13th of November, it is sure to be a performance you don’t want to miss!