Student-written production “Press the Button: Spinning Through Time” caps a year-long study of inventions and innovation at the Manchester K–5 school

MANCHESTER, Vt. — May 19,2026. A magical red London phone booth carried audiences from ancient Mesopotamia to the factory floors of the Industrial Revolution when students at Red Fox Community School premiered Press the Button: Spinning Through Time on May 19 in the school’s outdoor backyard theater.

The play, written entirely by students, grew out of the school’s year-long curriculum theme of Inventions and Innovation, which began in the fall with an exploration of “mistakes that worked,” like the chocolate chip cookie and the Frisbee. Over the course of the year, students studied how experiments, accidents, and creative thinking lead to invention, researching the inventors and innovations that sparked their curiosity.

That research became the foundation for the production. Students studied three historical eras — the Classical Period, Colonial America, and the Industrial Revolution — then worked in small groups to write original stories set in each one. A unifying idea emerged almost immediately: time travel. With a mysterious phone booth as the connecting device, the groups crafted three interlocking plays exploring both the benefits and the consequences of innovation.

In Wheels, Wisdom, and What Came First, a stranded modern-day lawyer travels through Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece, discovering how each civilization used early versions of the wheel. In Stoves, Storms, and Self-Evident Truths, a father and child land in Colonial America, where they encounter Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod, Thomas Jefferson drafting the Declaration of Independence, and the often-overlooked contributions of inventor Sybilla Masters and Benjamin Banneker, whose letter challenges Jefferson on equality. And in Plows, Protest, and Progress, two kids from 1984 witness the steel plow and the Spinning Jenny — along with the harsh realities of factory life and child labor, seen through the story of inventor Margaret E. Knight.

“What I loved most was how the performance encouraged us to think more deeply about progress itself,” said Karen O’Neill Thomson, Head of School. “The students showed that inventions can help people, but they can also raise important questions — and that the future is shaped not only by what we create, but by the care and thoughtfulness we bring to it.”

Students carried the production from page to stage themselves, drafting and revising scripts, designing props, and building scenery using cardboard-construction skills from their Life Skills class and papier-mâché techniques from art. Teachers supported the process by guiding and helping shape student ideas into cohesive scripts while preserving each group’s vision.

The result is a production that reflects not only what students learned about history and invention, but how they learned it — through collaboration, research, and creative problem-solving.

###

About Red Fox Community School Red Fox Community School is an independent K–5 school in Manchester, Vermont, where students learn through hands-on, nature-based, experiential education in three multi-age classrooms. Learn more at redfoxschool.org.