CAPA History

Established in 1978 to encourage voluntary desegregation in the Philadelphia Public School system, the Creative and Performing Arts High School attracted students from every school and neighborhood throughout the city who wanted to focus their education on the arts.

With a curriculum that included traditional academics, but offered intensive study in drama, music, dance, writing and visual arts, CAPA opened its doors to 250 students in an office building at Broad and Spruce Streets with no books, no supplies, no studios... no classrooms! As walls came down and went up around classes of students and teachers sitting on the floor if necessary, dreams were being nurtured, undeveloped potential bloomed, and scores of young, talented students were encouraged toward artistic achievement.

In the early eighties, CAPA moved to a school building at 11th and Catherine Streets, where it currently shares space with an elementary school of 300 students. The building has always been ill-suited for the performing arts, but despite the overcrowding and often frustrating physical limitations, CAPA's student body grew to over 600 and it's reputation grew as one of the finest public high schools dedicated to the arts in the country.

The future is as bright as it has ever been for CAPA. A six-million dollar capital campaign, headed-up by Principal Ellen Savitz, has resulted in groundbreaking for the high school's new location at Broad and Christian Streets at the site of the historic Ridgeway Library. CAPA's new home will include a theatre, recital room, fully equipped media center, and over 115,000 square feet of classroom, performance and administrative office space.

An experiment in the seventies is the success story of the nineties. Anew crop of talented artists and musicians graduate from CAPA each year. Among CAPA's graduates are jazz bassist Christian McBride, jazz pianist Joey De Francesco, painter Juan Gomez, and opera singer Karen Slack. And it would be hard to find any hopeful music student who is not inspired by the legend created by Nate Morris, Shawn Stockman, Michael McCary and Wanya Morris, who were motivated by their studies in vocal arts at CAPA and went onto become the international recording artists, Boyz II Men.

The CAPA Building
• The original cast-iron fencing was restored and can be seen on Broad Street and down parts of Christian and Carpenter Streets.
• The original exterior of the Ridgway Library (granite wall) forms the back wall of the new theater.
• The theater seats 350 persons and has a professional quality sound and lighting systems, including a catwalk.
• There are three black box theaters (theater rehearsal workshops). They are designed for drama faculty to hold drama workshops without taking up space on the main theater. They are the same size as the theater's main stage.
• There are 41 classrooms in the new Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts.
• There are two professional dance studios, with natural light and ventilation.
• There is a professional quality TV/Video studio and lab.