By Cecilia Nguyen, Editor-in-Chief & Olivia Krueger, Sports Editor
For the first time, a Performing Arts Assembly, hosted by Fountain Valley High School Theatre, will be held for all students in the gym on Friday, Dec. 21. Unlike the annual Winter Sports Assembly, this assembly will recognize the performing art groups on campus: theatre, dance, band and choir.
“The assembly is a way for all of the performing arts groups to showcase to the school just a portion of the skills that they have been working on since the beginning of the school year,” said senior Amanda Hay, lead writer of the assembly and theatre student.
The assembly will follow “A Charlie Brown Christmas” theme, which will be incorporated throughout the production. The storyline includes a twist when Charlie, the lead character from the comic strip “Peanuts,” is stressed about school.
“Once we had an original outline for the script, we scrapped it because we felt that it would not give the effect that we wanted it to. We started again, and we finally settled with a third main script idea that Mr. Zick introduced to us, and that was “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” said Hay. “We altered the script to make it more geared toward the Baron spirit, worked the other arts groups’ performances into the midst and then we finally had a script.”
Although preparation began at the end of October, the efforts to put on an assembly of this sorts has been in the works for the past three years. Finally coming together this year, organizers encountered numerous obstacles in the process of arranging the assembly.
“Originally, it was difficult, at times, to communicate between theatre, administration and all of the other arts groups and try to pull bits and pieces of information together and create a coherent story that theatre could present to an audience. At a certain point, we, as the advanced theatre class, had to just accept that we were not going to get answers from everyone right away,” said Hay.
Nonetheless, theatre has been preparing rigorously in hopes to leave the staff and students relaxed and joyful for winter break.
“We are artists, and we want our audiences to walk away feeling something,” said Hay. “We want them to be affected by the messages we are sending; students should take time to share the season with family and friends and not continually stress about school.”
The assembly will follow a 3A/3B assembly schedule on the last day of school before winter break.
