SCHOOL PROFILE
58
Trends In Education
The theater department’s offering was written by
playwrights from the period, but produced, in all
aspects, by students in the program. They were the
actors and the backstage technicians.
Michael Naffziger, theater director at the Schumann
School for the Visual and Performing Arts at IRCHS, is
justifiably proud of his students, who recently received
their second invitation to participate in the largest
theater festival in America, the Florida State Thespians
Festival. “This production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s
Our Country’s Good will be showing at the TECO
theatre in Tampa in March. This is IRCHS Theater Department’s
second submission to be a Mainstage and
our second invite. Last year our production of Blood
Relations was invited to the festival and performed in
the historic Tampa Theatre.”
Until this year, major performances, open to the public
and sometimes with dinner service, were held in an
open courtyard on campus. That stage is now named
the Charter Dome, an indoor/outdoor theater venue
with professional lighting and plans for side curtains to
make it truly all-weather.
SHARING THE STAGE
Choral and instrumental music share the stage with
drama and dance at IRCHS, with well-known musicians
in the community leading the way. Ray Adams,
long associated with choral groups in Vero Beach,
is artistic director of VAPA and assistant director of
IRCHS. With others, he joins Dave Mundy, director of
jazz studies, music theory instructor and sound
Students Brock Cowan and Peter
Newman hone dramatic skills in
Michael Naffziger’s theater class. >>
ED DRONDOSKI
/www.jameshutchinsonart.com