Upper School students run through dramatic scenes at a rehearsal for the one-act musical The Anxiety Project
“Many people think performing looks like a formal concert or a fully staged musical,” said Marshall Severin, Middle and Upper School choir director at Hampton Roads Academy. “But when we get creative, we can feature so many more students in so many other ways.”
This inventive approach led Severin to partner with HRA Director of Theatre Kate Goddin to organize the Academy’s annual Performing Arts Showcase, open to the public as well as the Navigator community. At this fall’s showcase, scheduled for the evenings of Friday, November 7, and Saturday, November 8 (7:00 pm), and the afternoon of Sunday, November 9 (2:00 pm), HRA will highlight the talents of its Middle and Upper School musicians and actors across a selection of genres and performance formats.
The variety built into the program will allow the students to explore a diverse range of subjects and tones while celebrating their creativity.
The centerpiece of the Showcase will be the Upper School production of The Anxiety Project, a one-act musical that seeks to combat stigma surrounding mental illness and give voice to those who live with anxiety and depression by drawing on the words of real people who shared personal anecdotes with composer Rachel Dean and librettist David Brush. Because The Anxiety Project addresses such mature themes as mental health challenges, self-harm, and substance abuse, this performance is recommended for audiences aged 13 and above.
A series of lighter acts will balance the important but weighty material addressed by the musical. The eighth- through twelfth-grade a cappella group Nowhere to Hide will open the show with upbeat arrangements of songs by Kesha, Billie Eilish, Amy Winehouse, Stevie Nicks, and more. Later in the Showcase, HRA forensics students will perform speech pieces and the eighth graders in Goddin’s Stage Experience class will act out the farcical radio play Zero Hour by Jeff Dunne. The goal of the varied performances, taken together, is to entertain audiences and inspire them to reflect on timely conversations in equal measure.
“Space to Tell the Important Stories”
Starring a cast of students in Grades 9 through 12, The Anxiety Project deals with topics certain to resonate with teenagers and parents alike, including mental health, wellness, and care for oneself and others. The musical follows psychology student Avery (portrayed by senior Heather Lowekamp ’26), who is soon to earn her doctorate and launch a career in private practice. As she immerses herself in the lives of patients sharing their experiences with mental health struggles, suicide, and medication, she comes to learn that the vocabulary of numbers and science on which she has long relied cannot capture the full depth of these individuals’ stories.
Throughout the audition and rehearsal process, Goddin noted, she was impressed by the thoughtfulness and sensitivity with which her students approached the material, which connected with challenges many of them have experienced but often struggle to put into words.
Senior Percy Bevilacqua ’26 portrays Macy, the silently suffering younger sister of main character Avery in The Anxiety Project
“I like to do things that challenge us a little bit,” she said. “I don’t think we talk about these issues as openly as we should, and I think that art is how we do that. It gives us this safe space to tell the important stories that need to be told and that we’re not always comfortable telling.”
To help students work through the musical’s difficult subject matter, Goddin has collaborated with both internal and external partners from the very beginning of production. She communicated openly with students’ families about the content of the show during the audition stage and ensured that Upper School counselor Elizabeth Rous would be on hand to provide support at every step. She also arranged a conversation with the writers of the musical to lend context to the material and invited Amy Woods, programming coordinator at The Sarah Michelle Peterson Foundation, to provide the students with guidance and mental health resources at an early rehearsal.
“Throughout this process, I’ve felt completely supported by my director and fellow actors,” said Moira Noble ’29, a ninth grader playing above her age as Hope, a 16-year-old with ADHD, generalized anxiety, and a history of self-harm who suffers in silence, fantasizing about an alternate life as the wife of Robert Downey, Jr. “As someone who can relate a little to my character, [the musical] allows me to express myself in my singing and acting.”
Lead actress Heather Lowekamp echoed her castmate. “The subject matter may be dark, but it’s a conversation that’s necessary to have,” she said. “People need to know that they aren’t alone in their feelings, and that they have the whole of humanity there to support them.”
As Lowekamp explained, the players built their characters during the rehearsal process by learning about the specifics of mental illnesses. This unique preparation equipped the cast to approach its performances with profound empathy. Though her mother is an opera singer who performed with the Virginia Chorale, and she, herself, has been singing her entire life and has acted in some 10 main stage productions at HRA since seventh grade, Lowekamp remarked that working on The Anxiety Project has exceeded all of her expectations.
For her part, Goddin is deeply grateful to the licensing company Uproar Theatrics for making such experiences possible for young performers. The Anxiety Project is the third production, after Ranked and Attack of the Killer Man from the Sun, on which she has worked with Uproar, which publishes shows that specifically speak to students and educators.
Goddin has kept turning to the licensor because all of its offerings consist of new material. “It’s important for students to see new work and to do new work,” she said. “We do the classics, too, but those have been done a million times.”
Indeed, the originality of The Anxiety Project set Goddin’s students apart when they competed in the One Act Festival during the Virginia Theatre Association’s annual conference in Norfolk on October 23. Following a top-ten performance last year, HRA’s theatre students raised the bar by earning the festival’s award for Best Original Play, along with an All-Star Cast medal for junior Aaron Carlson ’27. This exposure in advance of the Performing Arts Showcase allowed the cast of The Anxiety Project not only to impress their peers from other high schools, but also to share an important message with wider audiences across Hampton Roads.
A Joyful Celebration of Creativity
Bringing the party: Nowhere to Hide previews pop a cappella arrangements at the Middle School lip sync contest on October 17
If the aim of Goddin’s students is to provoke thought and compassion with The Anxiety Project, “the first, most basic goal” of Nowhere to Hide, according to Severin, is “to put a smile on someone’s face.”
The group’s pop a cappella performance at the Showcase, featuring multiple pieces arranged by HRA students, will be “a welcome breather,” said Lowekamp, who sings and serves as business manager for the ensemble. “Nowhere to Hide has always endeavored to bring the party.”
Initially organized to put on a fun performance for Music In Our Schools Month in March 2023, Nowhere to Hide was an instant hit with HRA students, faculty, and administrators. Assistant Head of School and Director of Upper School Ben Rous, then Director of College Counseling, invited the group to sing at the Tidewater Independent Schools College Fair the following week, and it has since become a fixture of the arts community at HRA. Nowhere to Hide proudly performed for Navigator families at both 2025 Back-to-School Nights and is one of only three high school choirs in the Commonwealth that have been selected to perform at the Virginia Music Educators Association Conference on November 20.
“We all bring different strengths, but when we sing as one group, it just clicks,” said Nowhere to Hide’s social media manager, junior Ashley Elizabeth Carter ’27. “It never feels forced—it’s just fun.”
“I love that Nowhere to Hide is by the students, for the students, and I’m just there to help them make it happen,” Severin said. “They select most of the music and arrange about half of it themselves. … This means the students are constantly engaged, energized, and successful in what they want above everything else.”
Like the Middle and Upper Schoolers in Nowhere to Hide, the students in Goddin’s Stage Experience course have enjoyed significant agency as they have prepared to perform at the Showcase. Their act represents the culmination of weeks of study about all aspects of theatrical production while scripting, rehearsing, and eventually staging a play of their own.
“One of my favorite things about Stage Experience is the amount of creative freedom we have,” said Mckayla Pacheco ’30.
As they have explored their creativity, the eighth graders have gained hands-on lessons in such skills as stage presence, projection, and pantomime. Practicing these skills through collaborative group work, Amelia Bate ’30 explained, has not only helped students rapidly develop their stage abilities, but also allowed them to “get to know people [they] don’t typically interact with throughout the school day.”
Having found a supportive and inspiring community in the performing arts at HRA, Stage Experience students are quick to voice their excitement to stay active as performers throughout their time at the Academy. As they look forward to the Showcase, they and their peers are thrilled to share this community’s commitment to storytelling and artistry with audiences from across the school and beyond.
Tickets for the Performing Arts Showcase are on sale now.
This story was also featured on WYDaily.com.
The Anxiety Project: One Act Edition is presented by special arrangement with Uproar Theatrics – www.UproarTheatrics.com.
