The Journey to Increase Student Engagement and Viewership in Hackley’s Performing Arts

The stage lights go dim as the curtain opens, and the spotlight hits the star of the show. After an hour or two, another marvelous Hackley Performing Arts Production has concluded, but the majority of students have not had the chance to watch the magic unfold. The performing arts program is a crucial part of Hackley, yet it does not get much traction from outsiders. What are the reasons students don’t attend performing arts events at school? What can we do to solve this problem in order to give the program the love it deserves? One possible solution is implementing more time throughout the school day, such as during community time, to watch our peers preview their performances.

One reason that students do not attend the performing arts events is because of their intense schedules and lack of free time. While performing arts is an extracurricular activity, many students do not participate in the arts and instead have other extracurriculars at the top of their minds. Between these other activities, sports, and, of course, the additional factor of Hackley’s rigorous curriculum and homework, many students find it difficult to carve out time in their evenings outside of school to attend these arts events.

“I am on the track team and have practice every day along with meets. On a typical day, I don’t get home from practice until 5:30 a.m. On meet days, I don’t get home until at least 10:30 a.m.,” said junior Keisha Johnson.

Another critical reason for the lack of attendance is the timing inconvenience. Many extracurricular activities at Hackley take place directly after school, but the majority of arts performances take place on weeknights. Take, for instance, “Triple Digit Tuesday,” which was a Jazz Combo performance that took place on a Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. Many Hackley students, especially underclassmen, cannot drive to school and instead rely on a parent or bus system for pickup. These buses and most parents are tailored to pick students up directly after sports end, but not to drive students back to Hackley for 7:00 p.m. and pick them up at 8:00 p.m. or even later.

“I can’t drive and don’t have a way to get back to Hackley late at night most of the time, so it’s hard for me to go to those arts events. If I had a way to get to the events, I would definitely be more likely to go,” said freshman Xavier Payne.

What can we do to solve this problem? It is crucial to build more time into the school day to watch our fellow peers perform, as most students are extremely busy during after-school hours.

“We have definitely been trying to elevate performances by showcasing them in Diller Hall during the day, which has been great. The only issue is that these performances showcase one or two acts or songs rather than the whole concert,” said Assistant Director of the Upper School Andy King.

Mr. King brings up a good point, being that these mini-performances only showcase a small piece of what each performing group has to offer. On the other hand, though, these small performances can also be beneficial, as they give students the opportunity to listen to a bit of what Hackley Performing Arts has to offer, possibly enticing these students to come back for more in the future.

“It is kind of cool to think about the idea of each of the performing groups that has a performance coming up, a play or a concert, having a chance to preview or showcase a piece. That is kind of in the back of my mind of what we are hoping to accomplish going forward,” said Mr. King.

Having performances built into the school day is a good idea because it can spark a new interest in the Performing Arts for students who would otherwise never hear about the wonderful world of art, music, and theater.

“I love the idea of bringing the performances to the students where they are easily accessible because maybe if they like them, they will come back out at night,” said Bettie-Ann Candelora, Director of Performing Arts.

While there is a growing effort to incorporate time into the school day to showcase performing arts students’ talents, it may be beneficial to dedicate even more community time per week to watch our talented peers perform.

“I think adding more time throughout the day would be a great idea because we would like to get our performances out to as many audiences as possible. I realize that sometimes an evening concert is challenging for students due to logistics, so I think it would be great to build it into the school day,” said performing arts teacher Rafi Malkiel.

Dr. Malkiel is very happy with the idea of adding in more time for performances during the day, but he also stresses the importance of making sure that night performances still exist as well.

“Getting more time in during the day would be great, but we still want to keep the night shows around. Maybe in the future we can explore the idea of changing the timing of the night shows to make them more accessible to students, while also keeping the timing appropriate for families,” said Dr. Malkiel.

In the meantime, as we get used to new scheduling with Diller Hall, it is still important to figure out how to increase attendance in the arts events so that members of the performing arts program can showcase their special talents to the rest of the Hackley community. We could take the homeroom period and turn it into another all-school community time where students can showcase their special talents. Homeroom and advisory days are right next to each other on the schedule, but they are similar. What we do in one mirrors what we accomplish in the other, and sometimes, it may feel repetitive.

“I think that having homeroom and advisory in a row is not very productive because we usually talk about the same things in each class,” said sophomore Olivia Lyu.

To counter this issue, it could be beneficial to take homeroom and turn it into all school community time. This would solve two problems: one, eliminating the repetition of homeroom and advisory, and two, finding more time throughout the school day to watch our performing arts program thrive.

Another piece of the puzzle is finding students who really want to be at the performances they attend. Arts students want their viewers to be genuinely interested in their performances, not people who are just there for an incentive.

“I would love for more people to come out and watch me and my peers perform, but I also think it’s important that the people who attend actually want to be there and see the performances,” said junior Linnea Boettner.

Due to timing issues, extracurricular activities, Hackley’s rigorous curriculum, and a lack of knowledge about the program, Hackley’s performing arts is extremely overlooked and does not gain the attention it deserves. By carving more community time within the school day to watch our peers perform, the program can increase in popularity and gain warranted traction.