News

A Stunning Stage Production Brings Narnia To Life!

Three days of thunderous cheers and applause were heard from sold out crowds to the Middle School cast, as well as Director Jenni Brown, for incredible performances last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe".

The actors wowed the audiences on stage, but there was also a lot of activity backstage that was truly awe-inspiring.

Responsible for getting their costumes on and their make-up done, students alongside wonderful parent volunteers and PCA staff came together to bring each character to life. 

A behind the scenes glimpse backstage would show Mrs. Beaver putting on Mr. Beaver's make-up before applying her own. You would see the White Witch making sure her eye make-up was just right before turning to Tumnus to ensure she had the right amount of white spots on her face. You would witness parents taking the fresh faces of students and turning them into the works of art as they transformed into the characters of Aslan and Fenris Ulf.

Goblins painting themselves green, a mother helping turn her daughter from a school girl into the prim and proper young woman that is Susan, were among the amazing transformations. And Lucy, after making sure her braids were knotted tight, took over the colorful application of the unicorn's make-up.  

You would hear the words, “Does anyone need a tail pinned to them?” being called across the choir room turned costume and make-up department, and nervous laughter coming from the actors.

“I am very proud of the way my students handled themselves during the performances,” said director Jenni Brown. “After working through some opening night jitters they worked together as a team and pulled out a win! They supported and encouraged one another behind the scenes and onstage and that made me smile. I also thought the 7th graders did a great job with the commercials and their parts as the two armies. I am so blessed by the way God gives me joy through my students."

These highly anticipated productions aren’t just made up of the amazing talents one sees onstage, but the village that it takes to make these live works of art truly shine. Between rehearsal hours, makeup time, costume ideas and the organization and orchestration of all, a big standing ovation and Bravo goes out to the staff, students, and talented director Jenni Brown!

From Equations To Imagination!

When the imagination and math collide, it results in some pretty amazing pieces of art. Rachel Tisdale’s Honors Precalculus class was busy last week learning how to turn trigonomic functions into creative pictures. The instructions were as follows, “Create a picture or design by using trigonometric functions with restricted domains. You may also add other functions (linear, quadratic, cubic, exponential, logarithmic, rational, etc) to add details to the picture. You may draw your picture by hand or use Desmos to create your picture.”

Students took these words and went to work using various functions that included sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant, to create graphs that would eventually form the pictures that they wanted to create.

Students created everything from marsh scenes, to snowmen, to funny faces.

“Students are able to use different parts of their brain,” explained Tisdale. “Projects, by nature, involve synthesizing and analyzing information in a way that does not always happen in a standard instructional setting.  What really makes my teacher's heart happy is seeing the students who may not excel in a traditional math setting step up to really surprise you when given the opportunity to complete a challenge creatively.” 

The students loved the opportunity to get creative as well. “I liked this project,” said 11th grader Evan Seay. “It was a fun way to apply trig functions in the real world.”

“It was a fun way to see God’s creativity through math,” said Ana Tyler.

We enjoyed seeing the incredible innovation of our students as they demonstrated both mathematical understanding and imagination.