All Pawtucket All The Time

While the façade of the castle-like Pawtucket Armory Center for the Arts (Armory Arts) building in downtown Pawtucket is impressive, it doesn’t even begin to convey the power of what’s happening inside. Here are some highlights of the synergy between the Armory Arts, Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, JM Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts (JMW Arts High School) and the community.
 
Since 2005, the JMW Arts High School, a Pawtucket Public High School located in the Pawtucket Armory, has drawn 118 creative students from around the state and parts of Massachusetts to this pioneering school offering both a focused arts curriculum and full college preparatory studies.   The Arts High School’s first graduating class of 2009 saw its students welcomed at such renowned colleges and universities as Mass Art, Florida State, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Rhode Island College, Chicago Institute of Art and RISD.
 
While at the Arts High School, students go well beyond the chalkboard and the science lab.  Courses include “Color and Anatomy,” “Dance History” and advanced Acting.  Students may intern at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre and visit RISD for after school study and further instruction.  They can also participate in neighboring Tolman High School’s athletics, all the while meeting the academics requirements of a state public high school.
 
The Armory serves as more than just a home base for this ambitious high school.  The building itself, with its soaring towers and solid, fortress-like design reflect the leaps of creativity expected of an arts student as well as the firm educational grounding furnished by the school district’s curriculum.  Walking in through the massive front doors, over a 19th century mosaic featuring the state’s motto of Hope, Arts High students know they are entering an environment that simultaneously offers a rooted past and a limitless future.
 
But it is more than just this “sense of place” that defines the Armory. It is also the physical placement.  Straddling the area between Tolman High School on its lower slope and the Armory itself is the Gamm’s Annex, the 137-seat creative locus of the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre.  Students at the Arts High School don’t need complicated arrangements to take in the highest-caliber Actors’ Equity performances of probing and provocative works – they just step out one door and into another, from Armory to Annex, home of the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre.  According to Chris Kane, JMW Visual Art teacher, “Having the Arts High School in a historic building with such character is great.  There is real synergy between the school, the Gamm Theatre and everyone involved with the Pawtucket Armory Center for the Arts.”
 
The cross-pollination between the Gamm, which has occupied the former garage of the Armory since 2003, and the Arts High School, which opened its doors in the Fall of 2005, is the very essence of the Armory Arts vision.   Arts High School Principal John Haidemenos, Jr. likens this arrangement of having teacher and student, master and disciple sharing the same grounds to that of a teaching hospital.  According to Mr. Haidemenos, “Thanks to our relationship with the Gamm Theatre, students have the opportunity to practice their craft in a real setting as opposed to an artificial one.”
 
Arts High students are invited to slip next door to watch rehearsals, to listen in to technical and critical discussions of the staging and the scripts, and to watch the evolution of a play as it is mounted.  Finally, when the play is complete, they are among the first to see it staged.   Gamm Theatre resident artist and JMW Arts High School theatre teacher, Karen Carpenter, asserts: “The relationship between The Gamm Theatre and The Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts is incredibly beneficial for the students as it provides them with an opportunity to see the real life application of the lessons learned in their arts classes as applied by professionals in the theatre.  The plays produced by The Gamm challenge and entertain the students, expanding their cultural perspectives and broadening their understanding of art and how it relates to relevant social and political issues.”
 
Further, they are granted numerous opportunities to expand their learning through both in-school and after-school initiatives developed by Gamm Education Director Steve Kidd.  Using the tenets of ArtsLiteracy learning, Kidd has created district-wide partnerships with teachers and programs that help students learn to love to read through acting strategies and exercises.   These programs include Pawtucket Literacy and Arts for Youth (PLAY), now in its 4th season, and WORD!, an after-school literacy-through-theatre program that culminates in public performances at the Gamm Theatre.  According to Kate, a senior at JMW, “The PLAY Program has not only enhanced my performance skills, it has also helped me come out of my shell. As a freshman I was extremely shy and reserved, but this program pushed me to take a chance and try something new. The program has also helped me become a better, well rounded student. The best actor is a smart actor, and the PLAY program definitely encourages that.”

Goff Junior High students visit for their final performance at the Gamm Theatre.

Teachers herald this kind of learning as superior to more passive forms.  As Rick Pimental, an English and Theatre Teacher at Shea High School put it, “students learn more by doing.  This allows them to do and read and learn, learn, learn while they are doing it.”  Students from JMW have been invited to work their very first professional jobs in the theater, paid for positions such as: house manager, assistant stage manager and direct sales representatives. Under Steve’s guidance JMW students have worked in a peer-mentoring relationship, teaching their craft to the middle school students of Pawtucket.
 
Something magical is happening in and around the Pawtucket Armory’s walls and it is showing in the most tangible, statistical form.  Principal Haidemenos notes, “Our relationship with the Gamm Theatre, together with classroom instruction, has increased literacy development in our school.  This is clearly evident in our 2007 NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) Rhode Island State Assessments where our students showed 85% proficiency in reading, 5th highest among all high schools in Rhode Island.  They also showed 61% proficiency in writing, 3rd highest among all high schools in Rhode Island.”
 
The just released NECAP scores show even more cause for celebration.  JMW  Arts High School students achieved 94% proficiency in reading, 81% proficiency in writing, and a 50% proficiency in math, which amongst the 63 Rhode Island public and charter schools, placed JMW 7th in math, 5th in reading and 4th in writing.
 
And it doesn’t end there, in a tower of academic achievement, nearly 1/3 of all JMW Arts High students begin this New Year on the honor roll and 100% of the Class of 2009 are continuing their studies in colleges and universities around the country.
 
Yvonne Seggerman, Executive Director of both the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre and the Pawtucket Armory Center for the Arts adds: “This is an incredibly beautiful historic building, but it’s all about that human capital inside.  We would be nowhere without the brilliant Artistic Director Tony Estrella who inspires us all on a daily basis, the extraordinary leadership of JMW Principal John Haidemenos, plus our mutual teachers, staff and artists who communicate and collaborate on a daily basis to great results that will continue to have a lifelong impact upon students, audience members and the entire community.” 
 
“We are deeply blessed by the two board of directors of both non profit organizations, Gamm President Coline Covington, Armory Arts President Samuel Babbitt, plus the City and the Pawtucket School Department, who have come joyously and energetically together to produce one of The United States’ unique and overwhelmingly successful arts-centric learning communities. I am humbled each day working in this building, hearing the music students practice, meeting directors, designers and even doctors working on the current show.”