Mission, Goals, and Philosophies

In order to provide for excellence within a group of creative artists, it is important for a performing arts organization to have clear objectives and a clear philosophy.

The Department of Performing Arts Mission:

To provide every student that attends The Academy of the Holy Cross with the opportunity to utilize the arts as a valuable learning tool in order to enrich their personal lives and contribute to their academic success.

• To provide students with quality professional-style training within the classroom and production settings.   
• To bring the finest of live theatre, music, and dance performances and productions to the school and immediate community.   
• To serve as a resource for the local community and surrounding high schools, providing workshops, outreach performances, and projects on a consistent basis.

The Department of Performing Arts Production Philosophy:

Acting, directing, designing, writing, teaching, and mentoring productions are the center of the training process in our program. Class work is critical in that theoretical understanding is established in class, and then applied practically in production. Classes and productions should not be viewed as adversarial, but rather as extensions of the same training process. Faculty and students must apportion time allotted to curricular and production needs so as to provide all involved with the ability to accomplish the goals of both classes and productions.

Season Selection Philosophy:

The Department of Performing Arts’ main season is devised to serve and enrich two principal groups:   (1) our creative artists – including: actors, directors, dancers, singers, designers, technicians, musicians, and visual artists within our school and community, and (2) our audience, consisting of students, family members, and community members. For both groups the selection of shows must contain a variety of theatrical experience, and taken as a whole, must be balanced.

A variety of theatrical experience is expressed through content and form. In content there must be contemporary issues and there must be historical perspectives. There must be works by newer writers, as well as established ones. In form, there must be varieties of genre, musical theatre, period-style, as well as contemporary realistic acting and production techniques.