Though MacDuffie students excel in many areas—academic excellence in the classrooms, athletic excellence on the fields—another excellence exists creatively. In the Arts Showcase this Friday, our community, plus a few guests, will experience first-hand MacDuffie’s merit in the arts.

Becky Beth Benedict, Arts Department Chair, defines the Arts Visitation Day as dual-purposed: “[It] allows…prospective students of MacDuffie to come and go to arts classes. They don’t have a shadow person, so as instructors we pass them back and forth.”

Benedict noted that this allows prospective students “to get a better one-on-one sense of what the arts are like at MacDuffie, how active they are, the variety that is offered to them, and the teaching styles.”

Jo-Ann Hastings, art teacher, is also heavily involved in the Arts Visitation Day. Hastings told the Magnet that she prepared a slideshow of not only student art but students making art, echoing Hastings’ classroom emphasis on the process of creation.

Hastings said that the prospective students, in addition to viewing the slideshow in our all-school assembly, will also join her for polyshrink lessons during F block, for a taste of the flexible yet fun essence of a MacDuffie Visual Art class.

Both Benedict and Hastings believe that many upcoming developments in the arts departments will excite and involve an array of MacDuffie students.

Benedict mentioned that auditions for the spring musical, The Addams Family, start in December. She also praised the theatrical works of the MacDuffie community that are ongoing or have passed, such as the eighth grade play that occurred in the beginning of November, and the Fall Play, That’s the Spirit, which will be debuting this weekend.

On the Visual Arts agenda, students will experiment with kinetic art, in accordance with this year’s time and motion theme, in which students will display “what makes them tick.” Make sure to keep up with the arts to experience the colorful and varied ways in which MacDuffie students create.