Hammies and Senior Showcase celebrate Conservatory graduates
Twenty-four seniors performed acts at the annual Senior Showcase to mark their successful graduation from the Conservatory’s Certificate Program following the Performing Arts Hammies awards in the Patil Theater on May 16.
Seniors performed chosen pieces related to their area of study, ranging from vocal music to technical theater, to demonstrate their growth over the past four years. Theater Certificate member Sathvik Vemulapalli (’26) staged two dramatic scenes from Molière’s play “Tartuffe.” His character, Orgon, demanded that his daughter, played by sophomore Sophie Yang, break her engagement and marry the conman Tartuffe. He emphasized that he would miss the camaraderie and friendships theater has brought him in high school.
“I haven’t processed everything yet,” Sathvik said. “I’m still getting my mind around the fact I’m not going to be here anymore. I’m going to miss theater so much, and all the community and the people that I met here.”
Ankita Sharma (’06) was this year’s Life in the Arts Honoree, an award that honors alumni who have wholly embraced the arts personally and professionally, at Harker and beyond. They were involved in Harker’s dance program beginning from 5 years old and are now a movement-based experimental artist located in Brooklyn.
Reflecting on their time at Harker twenty years ago, Sharma expressed their gratitude for the support from both the Conservatory program and the legacy of past performers.
“For me, it was about the teachers who are a part of the conservatory program,” Sharma said. “The training is really rigorous, but these are also people I’ve known since I was 5 years old, so they’ve seen me grow up and there’s still people I keep in touch with, people I ask for advice. In some ways it feels like there’s a Harker lineage of people who graduate and that’s very sweet to be a part of.”
All students who had participated in part of the Conservatory were required to attend. From cast dinners to inside jokes, members of the performing arts groups forged lifelong relationships, many of which they expressed through handmade posters or flowers. Sophomore Andrew Pangborn, a part of the Certificate program in technical theater, expressed his gratitude for the seniors and for the bonds between Conservatory members.
“It was cool seeing all the seniors put on a show together after having gotten to know them over the past few years,” Andrew said. “It was honestly sad, too, because just as I was coming out of the building, I realized that I’m never going to see many of them again.”
