Have you always wanted to act in a play or help build a stage set? Choreograph your own dance? Learn to throw a pot on the ceramics wheel or sing in a chorus? As a summer student at Exeter, you may choose to take a course in the arts or join any one of a number of extracurricular arts activities. We believe every student attending Exeter has talents just waiting to be explored and encourage you to take advantage of this vital part of our program. In addition to regular courses in theater, music, and art, we offer a selection of arts activities open to all who are interested. Our outstanding faculty of professional directors, dancers, musicians, and artists provides appropriate instruction for beginners and advanced students. The UPPER SCHOOL presents a major dramatic production, several drama workshops, and a dance concert of originally choreographed pieces during the five-week session. To participate in the major drama production, you must enroll in the theater arts course. In addition to acting, you have the chance to assist with lighting design, set construction, and costuming. Plays presented in recent years include The Taming of the Shrew, Our Town, Grease, and The Night of January Sixteenth.

In music, you have opportunities to play or sing in ensemble groups that meet informally or as part of regular courses. Extracurricular performance groups include chamber groups, the Glee Club, and the Exeter Summer School Orchestra, which is open to musicians willing to commit to a regular practice schedule. If you are interested in private lessons, we will match you with an individual instructor for an additional fee. We offer lessons on almost all instruments and in voice.

Art classes allow you to try your hand at ceramics, drawing, photography, architecture, or sculpture. If you enroll in an art course, you will work in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center, a spacious facility with art studios, a machine shop, art history classrooms, and an auditorium for movies and lectures. In an art show at the end of the summer, the Lamont Gallery showcases the work of students.

ACCESS EXETER students make use of the same outstanding arts facilities as the UPPER SCHOOL and have many of the same opportunities. Younger students may join the Glee Club or orchestra and sign up for private music lessons.

Click here for information about the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center & Fisher Theatre.