Each season Upper School performing arts classes end with a sharing session, in which each group performs or presents a sample of its work. Click here to read about ’14-’15 Upper School performing arts class offerings.
One of the offerings this fall was the Production Workshop. It was a new addition to the performing arts classes as of last spring. The premise of the class is to activate an idea. How do you make something happen? How do you keep a group of people focused through a process? How do you follow through on the many tasks necessary to produce an event? How do you know what those tasks are? How do you get other people interested?
This year’s group brainstormed a variety of ideas. They knew they wanted their production to have a fundraising component. After many discussions they chose a scavenger hunt. They liked the idea of getting people to be creative, connect with their environment in unusual ways, and have to to reach out to others. They wanted it to be about Waynflete, and they wanted it to be playful. They spent a lot time creating rules and inventing tasks for game participants. The tasks represented the diverse interests of each group member.
Hence the “Amazing Race” was born. More a series of tasks than a scavenger hunt, it asked participants to “pay to play” (fundraising), and then take pictures of themselves and others doing all of theses tasks. The hilarious pictures of the teams executing these tasks become a wonderful creative by-product of the event. The group chose to partner with another activity on campus, Dream Factory, as a way to maximize interest. In the end, eight teams played and three of those completed almost all of the 34 tasks.
Click here to read an article by Randall Seder (’17) on the Amazing Race!
Following are links to the Scavenger Hunt Slide Show and three versions of the culminating task of the scavenger hunt, videos of people attempting to play three instruments at once:
