Fine Arts
Menlo-Atherton is home to a professional-level 492-seat theater, the Menlo-Atherton Center for Performing Arts. It is home to the school play and musical; band, orchestra, guitar, and choir concerts; the Menlo Atherton Student Film Festival; the Bear Arts Expo, a collaboration between all of M-A's arts classes; the Senior Fashion Show; and many other school events. It also hosts events related to the City of Menlo Park, which partially financed its construction, and is one of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra's regular venues. The theater tech club helps to runs school productions and outside performances in the Center.
The band program flourished under the band director, Frank Moura, who retired in 2010 after forty-two years of teaching. The Advanced Jazz Ensemble regularly travels to festivals around the world, including the annual Reno Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival. The band usually places highly in competitions. The band is supported by the Band Boosters.
The Center is home to Menlo-Atherton's chapter of the International Thespian Society. Currently, they produce a play and a musical each year. In the 2010-2011 school year, they put on Pride and Prejudice and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The latter earned them nominations for the San Jose Stage's Top Honors awards. In the 2011-2012 school year, they produced Stage Door and Once Upon a Mattress. For Once Upon a Mattress, they received four nominations for the Top Honor Awards and won for Best Leading Actress. The drama program is supported by the Drama Boosters.
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