Fine Arts - Dramatic Arts

McAuley boasts an active curricular and extracurricular theater program. The Theaterworks class seeks to expose students to the art and craft of theater production. Students attend eight performances a year and learn the basics of stagecraft, theater history, and performance in daily classes. The emphasis is on performance, and various classes have taken their show on the road to area nursing homes and elementary schools, delighting audiences of all ages with their many talents.

The Limelighters, the afterschool drama club, is well known in the state of Maine for their competitive one-act plays. Since 2001, they have won every regional competition in their division and have qualified for the state championships. In 2005 they were the state runners-up for their production of Metamorphoses, and in 2007 they placed third with their 45 member cast and crew production of Heubner the Reluctant. Each year McAuley receives numerous All-Festival awards for acting and ensemble, but students have also been recognized for their innovative contributions to choreography, music, set, costume, sound, lighting, and hair/makeup design. The Limelighters perform twice annually--a late fall variety show that showcases the many talents of McAuley actors, singers, dancers, and musicians, as well as the spring one-act competition play, the varsity drama team.

The Limelighters believe that there is a place for everyone in theater, both onstage and behind the scenes, and students are welcomed and encouraged to find their special niche in McAuley drama.

Creative Writing is an elective fine arts course designed for students who enjoy writing and wish to further explore various literary genres, as well as to experiment with ones own ability to craftily put a pen to paper. This course is intended to help each student discover her own natural writing potential, find her own writing voice, and investigate the "essentials" of strong writing. Over the course of the year, students will be exposed to a multitude of topics and prompts (imagery, setting, character development, etc.), as well as the four major literary genres-fiction, essay/memoir, poetry, and drama. Students will be asked to independently write original pieces on a daily basis, illustrate the writing process through revision, participate in peer edits, and constructively respond to the writing of others. Students are expected to be a motivated reader, writer, thinker, and sharer.

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