Tara Performing Arts High School

Tara has an average total enrollment of 54 students in grades nine through twelve. During each full year of enrollment, each student participates in several performing arts productions, significant travel experiences, and a rich array of experiential academic classes. Over the course of the full four-year program, students work with experts in dance, choral singing, drama, musical theatre, set design and build, stage lighting, and stage sound to create four plays, four musicals, and eight community festival events. Similarly, during their four-year Tara experience, students participate in two cultural and art (music and visual art) immersion trips to NYC, one service trip to learn and work with Native American communities, one geology rafting excursion, and either a month-long cultural immersion in specific locations in Europe or a month-long ecological learning excursion along the west coast of North America. In addition, during their four years at Tara, students participate in a number of in-the-field experiential opportunities (or have guest presenters who bring real-world experiences into the classroom) and week-long off-site immersion learning "retreats" associated with their academic classes in the sciences, literature, and the humanities. These three program services represent the bulk of the Tara budget, but they are supported by the equally programmatically significant honor code work and festival/seasonal observation and celebration that take place at the school.

Tara continues to successfully operate the Nomad Playhouse (purchased in March 30, 2015). This allows the school to have a home venue for its numerous productions, which are central to its curriculum. The Nomad also rents its playhouse to local troupes and touring artists of various genres, film screenings, concerts, lectures and other inspiring events in the Tara's neighborhood.