Center Theatre contract with FA is providing great community opportunities

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Many will recall how last year Foxcroft Academy signed a contract with the Center Theatre to formally allow the Ponies to use the theater 20 times per year for concerts, plays, festivals and other events. Recently, the Ponies took advantage of this deal by having two events in rapid succession over the last week.

FA AND CENTER THEATRE COME TOGETHER — “Project Soulmate” was one of several films screened during Foxcroft Academy’s annual Film Festival, which was held on Jan. 19 at the Center Theatre on East Main Street. The film festival was one of two recent events, the other was the latest offering in the James Brown Lecture Series, held as part of the partnership between the school and theatre.

    The second annual Film Festival took place last Saturday, Jan. 19, and last Wednesday, Jan. 23 the James Brown Lecture Series (sponsored by the Thompson Free Library) featured Dr. Howard Segal from the University of Maine, who gave a lecture about the TVA and its benefits and shortcomings. These different shows strengthened the ties between Foxcroft Academy and the Center Theatre.

    I will address the film festival first. The festival featured works made by the filmmaking class here at FA, as well as a commercial for a Pine Tree Hospice event and a preview of a film chronicling the 2012 state football championship. Some local celebrity turnouts included Danny White, Anthony Smith and Judge Kevin Stitham. The first feature was the Pine Tree Hospice Snow Golf commercial, which included coach White and new Foxcroft Academy trustee Ethan Annis.

    Next up was “The Pony,” a video worked on by film teacher Mark Chevalier and freshmen Sophie Kurzius, Madison Fadley and Mitchell Chasse, which asked the question Why are we called the Ponies? This video featured many students, faculty members and Judge Stitham. The video was very well done.

    Following that film was the football preview, which will be released on Super Bowl Sunday. The next student film was “Trophy Trackers,” a film about a couple of trophy thieves and the search to reclaim it. This film featured Mackenzie Coiley, Madison Chadbourne, Ian Weizenecker, Hunter Smith and Peter Boyer. The film was directed by senior Sam Phillips, which is very impressive.

    Next up was “Project Soulmate,” a film about three men and their search for love as part of a “Bachelor”-style reality show. This featured Cam Fadley, Don Boyer, co-teacher Brett Almasi and Mr. Wayne Strout. When asked about his role as “Charlie Boobar,” Boyer stated, “It was fun — my character is sort of from the area so people can almost relate to him.”

    Cam Fadley, who played as Shade, said, “We wanted to have a kind of free spirit and SoCal guy and I figured since I had long hair before, I would be able to pull this look off in the film.”

    The final film of the night was a behind-the-scenes film about making a film festival, which was very well done. Winnie Li (class of 2012) created this film, and Angie Chen (also a 2012 graduate) assisted with the editing.

    Assistant Head of School for Academics Jon Pratt remarked after the film festival, “I had a great time, laughed a lot, and was really impressed by the quality of student work and the results that were evident.”

    When asked about his students’ performance, Chevalier stated, “I was very pleased with the effort my class put into this. They were excited about these projects at the beginning and couldn’t wait to see them featured for the community. Everything came together well, and I think it came out even better than last year’s festival in terms of overall film quality. The film festival was a resounding success, and it is a great example of the creative talent coming out of Foxcroft Academy.”

    The films from the festival will be released on the FA website one at a time (beginning with “Trophy Trackers”) over the course of the next month or so.

—

    Next up was the James Brown Lecture Series on Jan. 23. The series comes from the mutual friendship between the Center Theater, FA and the Thompson Free Library. This year’s speaker was Dr. Howard Segal, a Princeton graduate and professor of history at the University of Maine.

    Dr. Segal was introduced by Mr. Rusty Willette and Mr. Tom Lizotte and immediately dove into his lecture after a few jokes. He began by describing how the TVA, or the Tennessee Valley Authority, was one of the few New Deal policies proposed by President Roosevelt that was actually approved by the Supreme Court. The purpose of the TVA was to use dams to provide power to the Tennessee Valley. This valley constituted seven southern states, which were the poorest states in the country at the time. The reason for the TVA was that private industry wouldn’t invest in powering those areas, as the population was so spread out that any business venture would be worthless.

    The TVA was very successful in powering the Tennessee Valley. In fact, there were some people in the audience who grew up under the influence of the TVA, and they described in detail how much they appreciated the work put out by this government-funded project. Dr. Segal went into some detail about the chairs of the board of directors of the TVA, along with their exploits in other nations during the 20th century. He also described some of the shortcomings of the TVA–it didn’t do well creating utopian communities, and there were many environmental repercussions.

    There was a brief question-and-answer section during which some people from the Tennessee Valley described what life was like living under the TVA, and then an old film was shown for free to the community. The lecture was very informative, and the audience learned a great deal about the New Deal policy. I would recommend going to any future installments of the lecture series.