Rogue Elephant, a NYC based improvisation group visited Shipley for the day to conduct workshops with interested students and to perform before the student body.  Their performance was supported by the Richard Critchlow Brewer Performing Arts Fund, a fund established in the memory of a beloved theater teacher who passed away in June 2002. 

Tony Morinelli, Theater Director, described the scene in the theatre. “The stage found itself filled wing to wing with students exploring their comic gifts in a full day of workshops devoted to the craft of improvisation.  No small number gave up lunches and free time to attend not one but several sessions.  Indeed, several students convinced their teacher to bring their entire math class.  (When math gives way to theater you know something quite unique is happening.) Perhaps the most telling and even touching aspect of the day’s importance was the highly noticeable number of students whom we have otherwise never seen in the theater but who came to explore, sometimes shyly, sometimes eagerly, the risky world of comedy.”
 
“Richard Brewer was a teacher and theatre director at Shipley from 1960 to his retirement in 1991. He directed the spring and fall productions and oversaw the dramatics club for many years, and invented several theatre and public speaking courses, which he taught until he left the School. In recognition of his dedication to Shipley, Richard was named an honorary alumnus of the School in 1987, the highest honor the Alumni of The Shipley School can bestow upon a non-graduate.

Friends of Richard have chosen to memorialize his love for Shipley with the establishment of the Richard Critchlow Brewer Performing Arts Fund. The first endowed fund to support the performing arts at Shipley, the Brewer Fund enables the School to bring guest artists and performers to Shipley on an annual basis through the Richard Critchlow Brewer Performing Arts Series. The artists and performers will continue Richard’s legacy of broadening students’ horizons through the performing arts.”

Contributions to the Richard Critchlow Brewer Performing Arts Fund can be made payable to The Shipley School.

April 2004