Arriving around 6 a.m., before the sunrise, students departed from the bus and were exposed to the sights and sounds of Manhattan in New York City. 

“It was very beautiful,” sophomore Mariah Heverly said. “I was breath taken.” 

On a three-day trip to NYC, SHS music and theater students were able to visit the city that never sleeps as a group, with the trip leaving an impact on many of the students.

This trip, first announced during the beginning of the 23-24 school year, was the first trip that the music department had taken for art and music appreciation instead of for performing purposes. 

“This trip (was) just to take a group of students from our music department to experience the music and arts culture in New York City,” orchestra director Thomas Wright said. 

Through a connection with a tour company specializing in student travel, SHS band director Jeffery Maupin, along with the music and theater departments, was able to plan the attractions part of the trip. The logistics of the trip, such as hotel reservations and transportation, were taken care of by the travel company.

Departing around the afternoon of Sunday, March 16, the group arrived in NYC on Monday morning.  Their first expedition was to take a tour of Midtown Manhattan and have lunch around the area. Afterwards, the group was taken on tours of Radio City and the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, two large entertainment and cultural landscapes located near each other in Manhattan. 

On the next day, the group saw Hadestown, one of the two Broadway musicals they saw during their trip.  This visit provided all groups from the music and theater departments an opportunity to connect with one another. 

“This (was) hopefully a way for our music students —band, orchestra, choir, theater— to intermingle in a more social way …,” Wright said. “Our instrumental kids get to see how all of these different aspects of our performing arts programs can come together to perform a piece of music.”

Broadway musicals are theatrical productions that use a dancing and singing performance to portray a story, often using live music for the live theatrical experience.

The viewing of Broadway performances led to some students opening new doors into opportunities that they might not have thought of. 

“It brighten my horizons,” sophomore Mitchell Cox said. “We went to go see some plays, and there was live music playing. So I might want to do that one day.”

The musical had also changed some of the students’ perspectives on music, giving them the motivation to continue with their musical path. 

“It rekindled my interest in music,” Heverly said. “I’ve been burnt out for the last nine weeks, so I was reintroduced to the arts. It got me interested in performing again.” 

Included in the trip, the group also got to be part of a Broadway workshop. 

A Broadway workshop is a program that inspires and educates theater artists. During a workshop, a musical or play goes through a developmental process before it is released onto the stage. 

“They had a company member from Aladdin come in and teach our students a whole dance number, and they also taught them a song from the show,” theater director Caleb Francis said. “Then they go to incorporate those skills and being taught by a professional working actress.”

During the same day, the group also visited the Edge Observation Deck, a building in New York that is 100 stories high with a 360-degree view of the entire city that overlooks all of the buildings and attractions from high in the air. 

Before the long trip back to SHS, one of the last things the group did was a New York Harbor dinner and dance cruise. The cruise consisted of scenic views of New York with meal courses and a dance floor for the group and other people to enjoy themselves. 

While this trip was a new adventure for the music and theatre department and everything felt relatively unfamiliar, many students and teachers appreciated discovering art and music outside of school, pondering the question, will they take this trip again? 

“I hope so. Yes,” Francis said. “It was a good time. It was a good experience, especially for those who have never gotten to experience New York.”

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