What you create here will shape what comes next
Clarebourne’s arts community is a place where students learn to take a risk, make something of their own, and build confidence in their creative vision.
There is a kind of knowledge that only making produces. A student who has written and revised a piece of original music, who has written a work of fiction from nothing, who has held a stage in front of three hundred people and held the audience’s attention — that student has learned something about themselves and about their own capacities that no written assignment can teach them.
Theatre
The stage belongs to the students
Clarebourne mounts two full productions each year — a fall play and a spring musical — open to all students in Grades 5 through 12 regardless of experience. The drama faculty cast with range deliberately: every production includes students at every level, and the work of bringing less experienced performers along is understood as part of what makes the program worth doing.
The spring student-directed one-act festival is entirely organised and produced by Upper School students. Students apply to direct, audition their own casts, manage their own rehearsal schedule, and present work that is entirely theirs. Faculty involvement is limited to safety oversight and technical support. The results are consistently surprising — and consistently the most talked-about theatrical event of the year.
Backstage roles — set design, lighting, sound, costumes, stage management — are as valued as performing roles. Students who discover a passion for technical theatre at Clarebourne have gone on to study it seriously in college. Students also fulfill their community service requirement through special musical performances at a local memory care facility.
Recent productions
Our Town · Much Ado About Nothing · Little Women: The Musical · The Laramie Project · The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Audition information
Fall auditions are held in the second week of September. Spring auditions are held in January. All are open to Grades 5–12. No preparation is required for a first audition — students are given sides at the door.
Music ensembles
Clarebourne’s extracurricular music ensembles are open to any student who wants to participate — no audition required for most groups, with the exception of the Upper School Chamber Choir and Jazz Ensemble, which hold placement conversations at the start of each year.
Middle School ensembles
Concert Band · String Ensemble · Middle School Chorus
The Singer-Songwriter Workshop is one of the most consistently oversubscribed programs in the Upper School — a small group of students who meet weekly to develop and perform original music, culminating in an end-of-year performance in the Black Box Theatre that has become one of the most anticipated events of the spring term.
Upper School ensembles
Chamber Choir · Concert Choir · Wind Ensemble · Chamber Orchestra · Jazz Ensemble · Singer-Songwriter Workshop
Performance calendar
Winter Concert · Spring Concert · Chamber Choir at Winter Assembly · Jazz Night · Singer-Songwriter Showcase
Private instrument instruction is available with Clarebourne faculty. Interested families should contact the music department directly.
Play because you love it
Dance
Expression through movement
The Clarebourne Dance Company is a student-run ensemble open to Grades 6 through 12, meeting twice weekly after school under the direction of a faculty advisor. The company performs at the Spring Arts Showcase and at the student-directed One-Act Festival, where dance pieces have become a regular and much-anticipated feature of the program.
No formal training is required to join. The company works in contemporary, modern, and improvisation-based styles. Students with classical training are welcome and find that the company’s approach — collaborative, exploratory, student-led in the choreographic process — offers something different from what they have done before.
A student choreography programme, introduced in 2021, invites students in Grades 9 through 12 to develop and present original pieces with their own chosen casts. Three to four student choreographies are performed at the Spring Showcase each year.
Community Arts Events
The moments that bring everyone together.
Several times a year the arts move from rehearsal room and studio to the centre of school life. These events are open to the full Clarebourne community — students, faculty, staff, and families — and are among the most vivid expressions of what the school values.
The All-School Art Exhibition (May)
Work from every grade across every visual arts medium — drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, and digital art — displayed across the Main Building and the Arts Centre for one week each May. The opening evening is attended by the whole school community. It is one of the few events at which a kindergarten student’s work hangs alongside a senior’s, and in which the continuity of the Clarebourne arts program across thirteen years becomes visible at a glance.
The Spring Arts Showcase, May
A single evening in which the Dance Company, the Singer-Songwriter Workshop, and the student one-act festival share the stage. It is the least formal major event on the Clarebourne calendar — deliberately so. The atmosphere is closer to a community gathering than a polished performance, and students who perform in it consistently describe it as the event they were most nervous about and most glad they did.
Winter Concert, December
All Middle and Upper School ensembles perform. The Chamber Choir closes the concert with the programme it will repeat at the Winter Assembly the following week. Ticket registration opens in late October and typically fills within a few days — families are encouraged to register early.
The One-Act Festival, March
Open to all families and students. No tickets required — general admission, first come first seated.
Getting Involved
Most extracurricular arts programs at Clarebourne require only a willingness to show up. Ensemble rehearsals and club meetings begin in the second week of the academic year. A full list of start dates, meeting times, and faculty contacts is distributed to all students at the beginning of September
For students who are new to Clarebourne or new to a particular art form, the best first step is simply to attend a rehearsal. Every programme director expects curious visitors at the start of the year. Nobody will be turned away for lack of experience.
For families with questions about the arts program, the best contact is the relevant faculty director or the Dean of Students office.