The Arts

The City of Fort Worth is internationally known for its vibrant arts scene. At FWCD, we inspire innovation and excellence through our celebrated ballet program, visual arts classes, choral programs, band, orchestra, drumline, performing arts and technical theatre.

THE ARTS

THE ARTS

The Blan Family Band

FWCD has talent! And this talent was on display in the four different Virtual Fine Arts Coffeehouse events in the spring semester.

Students in each division were encouraged to submit recordings of themselves singing; playing an instrument; performing a monologue, stand-up comedy or dance. Visual artists submitted photos of their work. FWCD Scott Theater Manager Eric Tysinger was tasked with putting the individual performances together in videos.

“The highlight of our year is to showcase the wonderful work produced by our talented students,” said Director of Fine Arts Chelsy Beninate. “With the close of school on the cusp of the time of year that we really get to feature our artists, I knew I had to come up with a creative way to showcase our work while we were apart. A Virtual Coffeehouse seemed like a perfect fit.

“Ideas are just ideas, though, until the real work is done, and I am so thankful that Eric has the skills to make productions like this possible,” she continued. “We were certainly working on the fly, but I could not be more

Anonymous Chicken ’28

J Mack Slaughter III ’33

pleased with the submissions and how they turned out.”

Walker Smith ’21 hosted the Upper School version, which featured a plethora of talent including Rocco Leoni ’23 on the piano crooning a tune with his brother, Frankie ’26, on saxophone (the duo also appeared in the Middle School Virtual Coffeehouse), a clip of Upper School Theatre Director Travis Guba on Conan; special appearances by alumni Kat Clum ’18 and J Mack Slaughter ’02 who sang original songs; a video short by Pearce Wallach ’20; and a throwback video of Upper School Math Teacher Melissa Williams playing the bells in an Upper School assembly. Ashley Ortega ’25, Lily Hyde ’24 and Charlotte Bonnell ’25 hosted the Middle School version, which featured Andrew Lobo ’26 on saxophone, Julia Staffel ’27 singing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, Sean Hong ’27 playing Bach Suite No. 1 on cello, mad bike tricks from Rhodes Linker ’27, and a mother-son pairing in Adam Pierce ’26 singing with Upper School Choir Director Stacey Pierce accompanying on the piano.

The Lower School students knocked it out of the park in terms of cuteness. Host Riley Dunning ’31 emphatically stated, “We will not let the virus stop us from sharing our talents with the FWCD community.” She kicked off

Lillian Bruns ’29

the performance with a song from The Greatest Showman with her father accompanying on guitar. Additional acts included a fashion show from the Walker family (Martha ’30, Katherine ’30 and Whitney ’33), a cello performance by Harmon Hong ’29, a chicken pianist from Class of 2028, card tricks from a dapper Harvey Firestone ’29, and some fantastic visual art pieces from a variety of students.

“While I hope we are performing in person this next school year, I can bet that some of the virtual concepts we gravitated to over the last quarter of 2019-20 will remain,” Beninate said. “These videos were far-reaching and allowed us to share our work with a greater audience.”

All Fine Arts Virtual Coffeehouse events are available to view on FWCD’s Vimeo Channel at vimeo.com/ user21023474. THE ARTS

Fort Worth Country Day was nominated for three Dallas Summer Musical High School Musical Theatre Awards (DSM HSMTA) this past spring. Claire Guthrie ’20 earned a Best Leading Actress nod; Upper School Theatre Director Travis Guba was nominated in the Best Direction category; and Best Costume Design nominees were: Natalie Bracken ’05, Tricia Franks, Guba, Cathy Gullo and Kathy Roemer. All nominations were for The Drowsy Chaperone.

DSM HSMTA are regional awards, and nominees were chosen from among 68 participating schools. “This is a very big competition, and we are competing with schools 10 times our size,” said Guba. There were 10 nominations nominations for all other categories, which include Best Musical, Best Choreography, Best Music Direction, Best Orchestration, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Stage Crew & Technical Execution, Best Ensemble, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Featured Performer.

This year’s award show on May 14 was an all-digital format due to COVID-19 and safety protocols. FWCD Scott Theater Manager Eric Tysinger was for Best Actor and Actress and eight

one of only three individuals working on the creation of this show. All awards were announced via a produced video featuring engaging performances, virtual acceptance speeches and cameos featuring top Broadway talent.

Claire Guthrie ’20 earned a 2020 Betty Lynn Buckley Award nomination in the Best Female Actor in a Play category for her portrayal of Ethel in The Curious Savage. Guthrie has been nominated for three Buckley Awards (2017, 2019, 2020) while a student at FWCD and is the Theatre Department’s most decorated student. Guthrie attends Northwestern University, where she is studying theatre.

Named after Fort Worth’s own Tony Award-winning Best Actress, Fort Worth Independent School District and Casa Mañana alumna Betty Lynn Buckley, this scholarship awards program promotes and celebrates excellence in high school theatre. This year was the Buckley Awards 20th anniversary. Participation is open to Denton, Wise, Parker, Hood, Johnson and Tarrant Counties.

Talent. Dedication. Heart. That is what the Slaughter Family Arts Awards (SFAA) celebrates, as it recognizes and promotes excellence and effort in the fine arts community.

In the inaugural and certainly memorable year, where winners were announced virtually over the course of a week in a series of Facebook videos, FWCD students cleaned up, taking home eight awards and $500 scholarships. Winners were:

Samuel Asprilla ’23: Excellence in Instrumental Performance (Jazz) Grace Bobo ’21: Excellence in Visual Art (Painting) Claire Guthrie ’20: Excellence in Theatre (Monologue) Alex Nolan ’23: Excellence in Instrumental Performance (Contemporary) Humberto Zamorano ’21: Excellence in Visual Art (3D Art) Will Tuomey ’20 swept the Dance category with three wins for Group Choreography, Solo Choreography and Solo Performance.

More than 90 students from FWCD, All Saint’s Episcopal School, Southwest Christian School and Trinity Valley School entered submissions in one or more of 15 categories. Because of COVID-19 restrictions and socialdistancing protocols, the awards were presented on Facebook and Instagram starting on May 15 at 6:15 p.m. with a live-stream event featuring Rebecca (Shaw) ’02 and J Mack Slaughter ’02. Videos revealing the winners were posted shortly thereafter.

“Our goal was to celebrate young people in grades 9-12 for artistic work they are doing in or outside of school,” Rebecca noted. “Not all students who entered were involved in art in their schools, but in some way, art touched their lives.” To add some revelry to the virtual event, the Slaughters snagged some top talent to present awards, including actors Debbie Brown, David Coffee and Carlson Elizabeth Young ’09; threetime Emmy Award-winning actress Sainty Nelsen and four-time Emmy Award-winning television, film and Broadway actor/producer Eric Nelson, artist Ann Ekstrom; former Associate Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center Joel Ferrell; sculptor and painter Nancy Lamb; musician Travis Newman ’02; and dancer and choreographer Merrill West ’97.

Founded in 2020, the Slaughter Family Arts Awards are the brainchild of Rebecca and J Mack (see Alumni Profile on J Mack on page 50), who have a longtime affinity and passion for fine arts. J Mack grew up in a family of musicians and became a singer/ songwriter and actor. Rebecca discovered her passion for ballet when she was 6,

(From left) J Mack Slaughter ’02 presents a Slaughter Family Arts Award at the in-person ceremony that took place on June 4 on a piece of land owned by the Slaughter Family on Rocky Creek Ranch outside Fort Worth.

Rebecca (Shaw) ’02 and J Mack Slaughter ’02 created the Slaughter Family Awards in 2020 to celebrate, recognize, and promote excellence and effort in the fine arts community.

J Mack ’02 and Rebecca (Shaw) Slaughter ’02 pose with Claire Guthrie ’20, one of FWCD’s six SFAA winners.

dancing with the Gayle Corkery School of Ballet. At 12, Rebecca was accepted to her first intensive workshop with the Joffrey Ballet. This was followed by two summers and a winter term with the School of American Ballet in New York.

Following Rebecca’s years of touring and performing with dance companies and J Mack’s career in TV/film, the two independently decided to move back to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to pursue careers outside of the fine arts world. Rebecca embodied countless roles for a rapidly growing tech company in Plano, while J Mack went back to school to become a doctor. The two reconnected randomly in Dallas, falling deeply in love, and connecting over concerts, dance performances, and other arts-related events.

The couple has a deep love for the arts and dreamed of finding a way to recognize and reward the talent and dedication of students in the Fort Worth community. After being floored by Fort Worth Country Day’s passionate performance of Chicago HSV in spring 2019, the two knew that the time for action was now.

J Mack enlisted others from local schools to serve on the SFAA board, including FWCD: Melodee Halbach, former FWCD Director of Theatre is Creative Director, and Eric Tysinger, FWCD Scott Theater Manager, is Head of Technical Production. Baylee East ’21 is a student board member serving as Project Development Director for the SFAA Outreach Program. She is focused on creating a project to educate the children in art, dance and music. The student board, comprising students from participating schools, is empowered with funding and the goal of improving fine arts education in Fort Worth’s low socioeconomic schools. The proceeds from SFAA will be funneled into the SFAA Outreach Program to fund the developing ideas inspired and created by the student board.

An in-person, outdoor ceremony took place on June 4 on a piece of land on Rocky Creek Ranch outside Fort Worth that the Slaughter family owns. “While we all practiced social distancing, it was a special experience for our inaugural winners and their families,” Rebecca said. “We passed out the awards and sang together, forging a special connection. This was not how J Mack and I thought the awards would play out this year, but we are so grateful to the students for sharing their talents during this time of uncertainty and reminding us all how important the arts are in all of our lives.”

To learn more about the SFAA, visit www.sfaa.org.