Hundreds of students are putting their work on display for this week’s Spectrum Community School annual Fine Arts Showcase.
The showcase runs Wednesday (Jan. 11) to Friday starting at 7:30 p.m. at Spectrum.
Teacher Tim Barss, who heads Spectrum’s department of fine arts, helped launch the annual showcase five years ago as a way to bring the community into the school and present the high level of student-created product, he said. 
“As a guess, it’s perhaps 400 to 500 students involved in the showcase in some capacity or another,” said Barss, who has taught musical theatre and stage craft at Spectrum for 20 years.
(Inset photo: Spectrum Community School Grade 9 arts students Lindsay Goldsworthy, left, and Lena Pimlott show their two dimensional superhero paintings and three dimensional wire-frame figurines).
The showcase features pieces prepared by all of Spectrum’s performing arts programs (band, dance, musical theatre, drama) as well as its video arts and media arts programs. The foyer is transformed to a gallery of work by the art and photography students while stagecraft students design and run all tech for the performance show.
There are about 150 students in Spectrum’s various band programs (jazz, marching, concert) that will perform as well as performances from many of the 200-plus students in the dance program.
Spectrum also has 60 in the musical theatre and about 40 involved in the cast of the upcoming stage performance of Evita in March. Evita has about 20 in the crew, 20 in the orchestra and 100 total, Barss said.
“It’s seven departments all in one show. When you put us all together for this showcase it’s a huge chunk of the school involved.”
The showcase will preview a couple of segments from Spectrum’s Mainstage Musical Theatre production of Evita, which runs March 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 at 7:30 p.m., and March 12 at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased or reserved for either the Showcase or the March performance of Evita at the school office, or by calling 250-479-8271.
