We build community in a variety of ways, but one way is through events that bring us all together. Check out these photos from just a few of the events that brought parents, alums, and community members together so far this year!
Tyriek White February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. Barton-Test Theater
In February, award-winning novelist, musician, and educator Tyriek White will come to Westtown. He will be visiting classes and and spending time with students. He will present a Shoemaker Lecture on Monday, February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater. Please join us!
Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of the novel, We Are a Haunting (Astra House, 2023) which won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, was a finalist for the Gotham Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. He was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree and has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writer’s Institute, and Key West Literary Seminar, among other honors. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Literary Foundation, which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi.
We were honored to welcome Michael Twitty, culinary historian and world-renowned author of The Cooking Gene, KosherSoul, and Rice, as our first Shoemaker Visiting Lecturer of the year! Tim Mountz, Sustainable Agriculture Educator and Farm Manager, and Twitty had engaging moderated talk followed by a lively question and answer period. The next day, Twitty spent time talking with students in the senior English classes in the Belfry, as well as with students in the Perspectives in Literature and African American Experience classes where he talked about African American culinary history at our Lower School Three Sisters Garden. Our thanks to Michael Twitty for a wonderful visit, and the Shoemaker Visiting Lecturer Committee for bringing him to campus!
Congratulations to the field hockey team and coaches! For the first time since 2019, they made it to the Friends Schools League final, where they lost an intense game to ANC placing second in the league. Hats off to this team for a remarkable season!
Congratulations to the boys varsity soccer team who had an amazing season, and capped if off by winning the Friends Schools League Championship! Enjoy photos from through their season here!
Congratulations to our girls varsity soccer team for winning not one but TWO championships this season! They took home the Friends Schools League title as well as the PAISAA State Championship! This is the first time in school history that the girls soccer team has won both the FSL and PAISAA State titles in the same season. This is also coach Scott Bissett’s first PAISAA State title. Congratulations to Coach Bissett and to this tenacious team! You can see more of each of these matches here and here.
The 2024 Friends Schools League Champions! 2024 PAISAA Champs!
The Elements Dance Company and the Upper School Fall Dance Ensemble recently performed their showcase Danse Macabre, a showcase of supernatural folklore and cultural traditions with dances created collaboratively by dance teacher Amy Grebe and student dancers. Congratulations on a wonderful concert, dancers!
This fall, the Upper School staged The Tempest Reimagined. This is a brilliant adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, filled with magic, romance, and revenge. Commissioned for Westtown by our former Theater Director, Alex Ates, this play by James Bartell dazzled audiences. From acting to set design and costuming, to light and sound, our students on and off stage put on an amazing production! Our thanks to new Theater Director Shawn Rowley who helped bring this show to life. Enjoy this gallery of photosfrom their dress rehearsal.
And, save the date for the Middle School play, The Edgar Allen Poe Afterlife Radio Show! A tap at a chamber door, and the beat of a hideous heart evoke the very best and creepiest of Edgar Allan Poe. So when Poe sets out to keep his stories alive from beyond the grave, an otherworldly radio studio proves just the thing. Wandering spirits gather to play the roles in Poe’s most classic works, from The Cask of the Amontillado to The Fall of the House of Usher. But the grim master of the macabre is a little new to radio. What’s all this about commercials? And why is a skeptical cemetery cat sticking around for all these stories? Please join us on January 31 at 7:30 p.m. and February 1 at 2:00 p.m. to find out!
Finally, don’t miss the Upper School spring musical, The Addams Family! A comical feast that embraces the wackiness in every family, features an original story and it’s every father’s nightmare: Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family—a man her parents have never met. And if that wasn’t upsetting enough, Wednesday confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother. Now, Gomez Addams must do something he’s never done before—keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his parents. Coming to the Barton-Test Theater on May 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. and May 3 at 4:00 p.m.!
There’s nothing scary about Halloween in Lower School! Guided by our amazing art teachers, each student imagines and crafts their own mask. Their creativity and artistic expression shine in this project and they are proud to share their work with our community at the annual Lower School Parade of Masks, a beloved tradition. See the students’wonderful creativity here!
Just before Thanksgiving break, our community enjoyed the annual International Festival. This event, organized by the International Student Organization (ISO), was a wonderful success! Our students, families, and faculty set up stations in the Main Hall representing and celebrating their many cultures and countries offering snacks, games, presentations, and opportunities for connection and conversation. Our thanks to ISO and all who participated! Enjoy the photos here!