St. Catherine's School, Richmond, Virginia
Encyclopedia
- For other schools of the same name, see St Catherine's School (disambiguation).
St. Catherine's School is an independent Episcopal diocesan school for girls in grades junior kindergarten through 12th grade. It is the oldest private, all-girls school in Richmond, Va. and the only independent all-girls school in Virginia for junior kindergarten - 12th grade. St. Catherine's is the sister school to St. Christopher's
St. Christopher's School, Richmond
St. Christopher’s School, founded in 1911, is a college preparatory school for boys located in Richmond, Virginia. A program of coordination with nearby St. Catherine's School allows a broader selection of courses at the Upper School level, taught in coeducational classes on both campuses...
. The two schools boast a Coordinate Program which includes joint events for the Lower and Middle Schools and shared classes in the Upper School. St. Catherine's competes in 15 different sports as a member of the Virginia League of Independent Schools. The school holds a fund raising event on campus each spring called "Daisy Days." The event is open to the Richmond community. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
and the Virginia Landmarks Register
Virginia Landmarks Register
The Virginia Landmarks Register is a list of historic properties in the state of Virginia. The state's official list of important historic sites, it was created in 1966. The Register serves the same purpose as the National Register of Historic Places...
in 2008.
History
The school was founded in 1890 by Virginia Randolph Ellett, known as Miss Jennie, during the middle of Richmond's New SouthNew South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a phrase that has been used intermittently since the American Civil War to describe the American South, after 1877. The term "New South" is used in contrast to the Old South of the plantation system of the antebellum period.The term has been used...
movement. The school is contemporary with the Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
statue on Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, is a premier example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style. The first monument, a statue of Robert E. Lee was erected in 1890. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue exploded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings...
.
In 1917 the school was incorporated and moved to its present site in the Westhampton area of Richmond. It was sold to the Episcopal Church in 1920 and renamed for St. Catherine, the patron saint of young women, especially those undergoing education. Virginia Randolph Ellett, who had relinquished her headship some years before, continued to teach and live at the school until her death on April 9, 1939 in her home built on campus. She was buried in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery and her grave marker was created by sculptor Rene Decartes.
Scenes from Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
's First Kid
First Kid
First Kid is a 1996 Disney comedy film directed by David Mickey Evans and stars Sinbad and Brock Pierce. It was mostly filmed in Richmond, Virginia.-Plot:...
were shot here.
Student body
St. Catherine's is a college preparatory school with more than 920 students currently enrolled from junior-kindergarten through twelfth grade, with a tuition of approximately $21,000 for Upper School day students. For almost 90 years a boarding program existed at St. Catherine's but was phased out in 2008. The school's official colors are gold and white. A long-standing rivalry exists between St. Catherine's and The Collegiate School Richmond, VA.Ampersand
Ampersand, the joint theatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
organization of St. Catherine's and St. Christopher's, organizes a variety of theatre-related activity, including three annual mainstage plays, which have ranged recently from one-acts to classic plays such as The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, Antigone
Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Oedipus' mother. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood", "in place of a mother", or "anti-generative", based from the root...
, and The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, to more contemporary full-length plays, such as Tom Dudzick's Over the Tavern and David Auburn's Proof
Proof (play)
Proof is a play by David Auburn originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club on 23 May 2000. It then went to Broadway on 24 October 2000 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, and was directed by Daniel J. Sullivan, with Mary-Louise Parker as Catherine, Larry Bryggman as Robert, Ben Shenkman as Hal, and...
, to musicals such as Alan Menken's Little Shop of Horrors
Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...
. Plays have been held in McVey Theatre for more than 50 years.
Notable alumnae
- Lady Astor (1898) first woman in British history to sit on Parliament and benefactor of Ellett
- Pocahontas Wight Edmonds (1921) author, descendant of Pocahontas
- Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek (1933) worked for many local causes, benefactress
- Lee Smith (1963), author
- Charlotte Fox (1975) climbed Mount Everest in the "Into Thin Air" saga (on her 39th birthday)
- Peel Hawthorne (1975) winningest field hockey coach in the history of William & Maryhttp://tribeathletics.com/story.php/1112/