Joanna Chilcoat Fellows, who starred in the 2003 cult favorite Camp and now teaches theatre arts in Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland, attended a January 16 Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education meeting to speak out against a proposed cut to arts funding. In the video above, Chilcoat Fellows sings and raps new words about the importance of arts education to the tune of the opening number from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton.
Chilcoat Fellows portrayed musical theatre fan and performer Ellen in Camp, Tony nominee Todd Graff's movie about a theatre camp in upstate New York modeled on the real Stagedoor Manor.
The movie also features Robin de Jesús (a Tony nominee for his performances in In the Heights and La Cage Aux Folles and soon to be back on Broadway in The Boys in the Band), Oscar nominee and Pitch Perfect star Anna Kendrick (who also starred in the film adaptations of Into the Woods and The Last Five Years), and Sasha Allen (a semi-finalist on The Voice and Dionne in the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair).
Chilcoat has taught at Seneca Valley High School for seven years, leading a department that has recently presented productions of The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.
