Base Line Middle School students who participated in a cooperative program this spring to study the Tony-award winning play "Copenhagen" will receive awards for their play-based projects in a special ceremony at the school on June 3.
The award ceremony for the students, and their teachers, will be at 1:30 p.m. at Base Line Middle School, 700 20th St. in Boulder. Student projects were in one of four categories including performance, 3-D art, visual art and writing.
The students studied the play as part of a cooperative effort involving the school, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Center for the Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The play, which ran at the Denver Center Theatre Company from March 12 through May 10, features a conversation by physicists on the ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding the creation of the first nuclear bomb.
The students read the play and went to the performance in mid-April after participating in a 90-minute class by three CU-Boulder doctoral students on the ideas and subjects of the play. The CU students incorporated theater, history and science into the class.
"The judges for the Copenhagen projects said they were amazed at the variety of submissions and their creativity," said Jeanne Manning, chair of the Advisory Council for the CU-Boulder Center for the Humanities and the Arts. The judges included Boulder Valley School Supt. George Garcia, Dean of CU-Boulder's School of Education Lorrie Shepard, Jared Polis, of the state Board of Education and Deputy Director of Public Affairs Ken Santistevan of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Twelve of the participating eighth graders who received first- and second-place honors will receive monetary awards, and all of the winners will receive vouchers for two tickets to one of four plays being produced this summer by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival at CU-Boulder.
First- and second-place winners include: Alana Richardson (first place, performance), Evan Kruegel (second place, performance), Ariel Heintze (first place, 3-D art), Rowena Lair, Steph Koppe and Mairead La Jeunesse (tied for second place, 3-D art), Urpi Parionai and Cammie Hensley (tied for first place, visual art), Erin Simons-Brown and Ana Nissan (first place, writing) and Will Steinhardt and Jon Endicott (second place, writing).
Participating teachers who will receive gift certificates to the Boulder Book Store for their work on the project include Mary Jo Bode, Larry Runnels, Jill Gartland and Joni Kiesecker.
Students receiving honorable mention for their projects include Allie Peterson, Lizzy Chitty, Matt Monohan, Jamie Langer, Danielle DesGeorge, Shanti Colol, Haley Ohl, Nicki Rzyska-Filipek, Caroline Andrews, Emily Cleveland, Claire Sarson, Lacy Bishop and Vivian Underhill.
Editors: To arrange interviews or photographs at Base Line Middle School, please contact Mary Jo Bode at (303) 442-3580. For other questions contact Jeannine Malmsbury at (303) 492-3115 in the CU-Boulder News Services Office.