One of ASF's most demanding projects has come to an end, our Grade 4 Musicals. Thank you to everyone who read us and supported us. 

Now, we would like to share with you a souvenir of our project:

Just check out our gallery below or click here to download your favorite picture.

You can also go to the Parents Portal to watch the full videos of our plays.

This is it for the final recap. If you want to learn more about the project keep scrolling down!

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We are two weeks away from our Grade 4 Musicals Presentations. There is no time to waste!

The Costume Designers, Electricians, Makeup Designers and Set Designers are currently working nonstop, to make sure you enjoy our musicals, which are quickly approaching. 

This week, the costume  and makeup designers started drafting and trying makeup to see what best would fit their characters. Ms. Adriana Jones is teaching the artists how to combine colors to achieve the best results!

Electricians are getting ready to work at the MakerSpace, while set designers are decorating through the LS Halls.
 

 

We assure you we are working hard to give the best show ever. Will you join us?

4A Makeup/Costume: Renata Betancur, Elena Camacho, Rafaela Fernández Set Designers: Faustino Franck, Eva Lask, Sixto Saa 4B Makeup/Costume: Lola Sebaoun, Victoria Nestel, Isabel Álvarez Set Designers: Andrea Pérez, Emilia Galvis, Weston Reuter, Oliver Clark 4C Makeup/Costume: Valeria Peña, Jimana Alarcón, Barbara Quiroga Set Designers: Tadeo Galvan, Marielena Camacho, Lillian Cormier, Mina Hong 4D Makeup/Costume: Clara Romero, Sofía Covarrubias Set designers: Alexis Rebon, Elena Mulcahy, Lara Martinez, Joonhee Jung 4E  Makeup/Costume: C.D Elisa Barros, Paula Merino, Noelle Slette Set Designers: Chelsa Guo, Clara Shelton, Eliana Sanwick 4F Make up Artists/Costume:Ivette Murat, Paula Díaz, Aarika Ajit Set Designers: Íñigo Gutierrez, Renata Mayorga, Maria Jaramillo, Averie Rakhara 4H Makeup/Costume: Máxima Pérez and Domenica Suero Set Designers: Mathi Puentes, Maggie Nam, Batia Zaga 4G Makeup/Costume: Daniela Maccisse, Eduardo Petrov, Patricio Solórzano Set Designers: Villads Bringskov, Tristan Williammee, Uma Karam, Raquel Peralta

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We’re back with another very exciting blog entry!

Now it is our turn, Historians and Public Relations (PRs), to take the stand and tell you about our job in the Grade 4 musicals!

4A: Historian and PR-Thomas Goulart 4B: Historians- Pablo Elek, Alex Pepper PR’s- Santi Sánchez, Marina Orendain 4C: Historians and PR’s- Natalia Rodríguez-Navarro, Diego Ortega 4D: Historian - Pablo Anton/Liam Ezekiel, PR- Lucas Martínez 4E: Historians and PR’s: Ian Cho, Santi Pérez 4F: Historian- Patrico Villela Historian and PR: Martina Grimaldi PR: Jerónimo Junca 4G: Historians and PR’s- Max Luster, Paula Dueñas 4H: Historian- Leonora Díaz Ordaz, PR- Javier Laresgoitti Lore Valle

This week, we started working in workshops with Ms. Tracey (Historians) and Mr. Juvenal (PR’s).

Ms. Tracey Bryan, STEAM Coordinator 

Mr. Juvenal López, LS Activities Specialist

Let’s talk about the Historians first:

Ms. Tracey told us that we have a very important job. We are in charge of making a behind-the-scenes timeline to show you, the audience, all of the hard work and technology that is behind our musicals!

Why is it important to show the behind-the-scenes?

Because every single person on the team, all Grade 4 students, is important and has value. If we do not do this job, you will not be able to see everything everyone did!

This is the reason why, besides writing this blog, we will be creating a very fun video telling the whole story, and we will share it with you once the musicals are done. Wait for it!

Now let’s move on to the PR’s, because we have a very fun job as well!

We will be working on a very fun project that Mr. Juvenal told us everything about it. We will be in charge of all the advertising! That is, creating posters and images to motivate our audience, LS Parents and Students, to come to see our musicals.

He taught us to use Canva, which is a very helpful design tool. He talked to us about branding (the use of colors and logos), reminders (telling people what to do) and the special clues that advertising uses to create interest in people!

We hope we do our job well, and that you decide to come to see our musicals! Soon, we will be sharing some of the posters we have created. We will keep you posted!

This is it for this entry, but make sure you check out our gallery, where you will see the set designers, who are already working on the projections of their designs!

 

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Hello! 

We are Lucas Balas, Alfredo Micha and Bella Pantic, and we are going to tell you about the job of Production and Stage Managers here on our road to the Grade 4 Musicals.

First of all, meet all the production managers:

Damián Craig, Roberto Ovilla, Andres Mizrahi, Noa Wiznitzer, Nathalie Cherem, Rodolfo Moreno, Víctor Luna, Sofía Altamirano.

And stage managers:

Pablo Pizarro-Suárez, Lara Scamilla, Lucas Balas, Fernanda Benítez, Elena Méndez, Michel  Wiznitzer, Isabella Pantic, Alfredo Micha, Batia Zaga

These past weeks, we had a workshop with Mr. Fagoaga who taught us about our responsibilities on this project, which include:

• Opening and closing curtains
• Making sure that everybody is safe and follows the rules (no running, no drinking, etcetera)
• Ensuring that the entire musical schedule is ready on time
• Preparing all calendars
• Meeting deadlines

For example, we have to make sure that writers finish the script shortly so that actors have enough time to rehearse!

We, as stage managers, are also the ones in charge of supervising the sets, keeping actors calm while on stage, and having everything on schedule. We mainly deal with actors and writers, but we also work very closely together with production managers, who work with all the people!

“At a professional level, Production Managers make sure that everything is done on time. While Stage Managers help, among other things, with the logistics of rehearsals and technical cues on the script. - Mr. Manuel Fagoaga, Fine Arts Center Assistant and Stage Manager

Soon, we will also learn how to use the microphones, because production and stage managers use them a lot. We will have to introduce the play and tell the audience the rules beforehand. That is super important and exciting!

“The idea here is that they learn to support each other, and that is the reason why production and stage managers' tasks are intertwined at this level.” 

We really like this job because we do some of these things at home, so we have some sort of experience. Besides, we like helping people and talking on the microphone too! Some of us have been actors before, so this is an opportunity for us to do something different.

“One of their main tasks is to make sure that all teams cooperate with each other. They need to learn how to be a team and work for a common goal, even when they all have different tasks. Everything they do can affect everyone for better or worse”.

We are very thankful to Mr. Manuel Fagoaga who has been our teacher in the workshops. Besides, he guided all Grade 4 students on a tour of our Fine Arts Center. It was awesome!

So come see our musicals, we will make sure everything runs smoothly!

Also, do you know what other students’ roles there are? Don’t forget to come back to this post every week to learn more about them!

 

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From Grade 4 Students:

Hello, everyone. We are the Grade 4 students and we have started one of the most fun, but hardest projects in Lower School: Musicals completely created by us.

We want everyone to know all the things that we are doing, so keep on reading and join us on this journey!

Meet the writers:

4A: Paula Menchaca, Eva Lask, Aanya Sabareesh, Leonardo Labastida 4B: Andrea Pérez, Julia Aguilar, Diego Gutiérrez 4C: Mina Hong, Natalia Rodríguez, Lillian Cornier  4D: Noa Wiznitzer, Alexandra Flipo, Emiliano Servín 4E: Lola García Moreno, Thiago Gómes, Elena Mendez, Santiago Coor, Camilo Rodríguez, Paula Merino 4F: Lorenza Martinez, Rodolfo Moreno, Mich Wiznitzer, Seonwoo Lim 4G: Alonso Landeros, Daniel Amiga, Isabella Pantic, Camila Fernández 4H: Batia Zaga, Ale Benítez, Julia Beth Arenas, Maria Paredes, Santiago Fernández

As you may know, for the musical we do everything from scratch! So we, the writers, are the first team to start working.

We are having a workshop with Mr. Manuel Fagoaga, who is teaching us how to write a script for a musical: from the creation of the story to writing the characters and dialogues. 

What we do:

“We have been learning about what does the scene include and what does it need for the audience to be interested,” says Lorenza Martínez, one of our writers.  “We have also been learning how to write a script and how to develop our stories”.

“Yes!” confirms Alonso Landeros. “We are learning how to build up our story and he [Mr. Fagoaga] is giving us tips about what we can add and what we can take off. And he is also helping us develop our script”.

 

 

Why we decided to be writers or why we were chosen:

“So… for our class, we got chosen with a yes-or-no option,” explains writer Bella Pantic. “But we agreed because it is, like, people admire your work, and what you do. And your work will come together in a whole play. It is, like, a very fun feeling to have people acting and stuff for the play that you wrote”.

Alejandro Benítez also tells us his reason for being a writer: “I’m a writer because there was four people of writers in my class, and I wanted to make more writers for making the script done more fast and being moving on more with the musical. And I wanted to be a performer, so I wanted to know the story. So I wanted to be a writer because I love writing things”.

 

But the workshop has not been easy, writing is not easy. We definitely have a lot of work to do!

“What’s been hard is making up the story from the beginning all the way to the end. Because if you make a mistake, you are gonna have to redo it”, says Santiago Coor to explain one of our challenges.  “And you have to make it good and understandable so people can read it and you can make it as a play”.

“Knowing what happens in each part [has been very hard]. And knowing the lines [dialogues], the characters and all of that,” concludes Batia Zaga.

 If you want to see the final result of our work, you will have to come see our musicals!

 Also, don’t forget to come back to this article each week, to learn about the other roles!

About the Grade 4 Musicals:

The Grade 4 Musicals is a project originally offered at the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York, and ASF has been carrying it out for 30 years. Teacher Cármen Gil first learned about the project and she traveled to be trained. Afterwards, she came back and initiated the project with her ASF group. After a time, the project was extended to all Grade 4 in English, and then in Spanish.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild trained teachers to create an opera from the start: the story, script, music, set, makeup, costume design, and everything that an opera entails. Students could not be helped by adults, it had to be their work alone.

The original program was divided into three stages (one each Summer), and each stage lasted 10 days. The Metropolitan teachers used to go to the schools in the United States to guide the students and teachers.

While our teachers are no longer traveling to New York for training. A few years ago, coaches from the Metropolitan came to ASF campus to train teachers in order to continue the project.