For nearly four decades, Peggy Freemole has rolled with the changes while leading the renowned Greleey West Performing Arts program.
From generational shifts to technology upgrades and COVID-19’s impact on the arts, she always ensured the show must go on.
After a long teaching career, Freemole will retire as the theater director for Greeley West High School following her final production of “Hadestown” on Saturday.
Considered an irreplaceable and beloved force, Freemole’s legacy will live on in the students and the staff she has touched over the years.
Freemole has worked in Greeley-Evans District 6 for 42 years. She started her career at Heath Middle School, then known as Greeley Junior High School, and spent a year at Greeley Central High School before finding her “home” at Greeley West in 1988.
Many of Freemole’s former Heath students who had moved on to Greeley West kept “pulling on her heart strings” to transfer from Central to West. Although torn to leave behind staff and students she loved at Central, she decided to take a chance.
“West is my school,” Freemole said. “For me, it was the right decision, and I just never left. It’s been an amazing place for me.”
From there, she immersed herself in nearly every area of the performing arts, coaching the pom team, serving as the director of theater, teaching theater classes and putting on dozens of productions for more than 30 years.
Freemole-led productions have dipped into nearly every genre, including drama, comedy, farce, children’s shows and musical theater, according to Greeley West Principal Jeff Cranson.
Shows under Freemole’s direction have earned two Rocky Mountain Theatre awards, Cranson highlighted. On three separate occasions, her students have been featured on the main stage at Colorado State Thespian Convention.
The theater department has also won three National High School Musical Theatre Awards. Under her leadership, the program’s excellence in acting, singing, dancing and overall production has allowed them to perform three times in 2001, 2005 and 2008 at the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland — a career highlight for Freemole.
To expose and inspire students to the world of theater, she has hauled students all over Colorado, from the University of Northern Colorado to the Arvada Center, to witness performances. The department has also taken at least 20 trips to New York City to see Broadway shows.
Freemole also found plenty of success outside of theater, including as the dance team coach. In 2001, the team secured a national championship in jazz.
“Peggy Freemole is an institution at Greeley West, working tirelessly to put her students in positions to not only succeed but to thrive and receive local, state, national and international accolades in her theater and dance programs,” Cranson said.
Greeley West Theatre Director Peggy Freemole talks with her cast of “Hadestown” during a dress rehearsal on Thursday. This will be the last play for Freemole, who is retiring after 30 years. (Jim Rydbom/Staff Photographer)Seeing excellence in every student
Freemole has left a lasting impact on most of her students, whether they graduated in 1994 or 2024.
She keeps in touch with those who have set foot in her department to hear about all the great things they have accomplished, like finding success in the performing arts industry, getting into their dream university or even following in her footsteps to teach theater.
“I think the thing about West that has been consistent throughout all my time is: the talent that has come through my doors has been unreal,” Freemole said.
Her impact on students can be seen in the many former students who returned over the years.
In her latest production of “Hadestown,” one recent graduate has commuted from the University of Colorado Boulder to lend a hand with set and light design, and a 1994 graduate plans to fly from California to support Freemole for her last show.
“If you’re a high school teacher, it is all about your relationship with the students,” she said.
The standard of excellence that Freemole sets as a teacher immediately stood out to Tom Nugent, the orchestra and music director at Greeley West High School, when he arrived at Greeley West 14 years ago.
Over the years, their relationship grew into a strong collaboration, frequently teaming up to combine their expertise and pupils for dance routines, musicals and graduation ceremonies.
“She’s got passion for theater, passion for the arts in general and a passion for Greeley West that is contagious,” Nugent said. “It’s been one of the great joys for me … growing my program. In large part, it’s due to the standard that she sets.”
Nugent has learned from Freemole’s specialty: challenging students to believe in themselves and helping them reach levels they didn’t think possible. Students bring their talent into the performing arts program, and Freemole helps cultivate their skills, in and out of the auditorium.
Nugent can see her influence in the way students carry themselves in the hallways, how they transfer what they learned into life after graduation and in the contributions former students continue to make to the performing arts program that shaped them.
“The thing that I have learned from Peggy, that I try to emulate in my teaching, is how to get students to see the best in themselves,” he said. “Her legacy is one that can’t be erased because of what she has instilled in her students.”
Greeley West performing arts teacher Peggy Freemole, left, speaks to the Tribune during rehearsal for ‘A Fond Farewell: Bidding Adieu to the Greeley West Theatre’ in the auditorium in Greeley West High School in Greeley on March 3, 2022. (Alex McIntyre/Greeley Tribune file photo)Freemole sees herself as only one small part of the talent found at Greeley West.
She could not have made it through long hours outside of normal school operations that bled into the evening and weekends without her students, the army of theater department parents and other staff members in the department, like Nugent, vocal coaches and costume designers.
“I’m just a piece of it,” Freemole said. “You can’t do this alone.”
Most notably, Freemole has seen incredible theater mastery on and off the stage, from advanced dancers, singers and actors to tech design students who have made the productions come to life.
Amplifying productions
Freemole’s students have worked their way to many unique opportunities through their team effort and talents.
When the “Les Misérables” school edition came out, Greeley West immediately jumped on the opportunity, and challenge, to present it to the District 6 community. The production stands out as a director because the final product blew audiences away. The crew built a turntable and barricade for the set and brought in a person to incorporate scenes with firearms. Two cast members also went on to pursue opera.
The theater department had another unique opportunity to hire experts to teach flying effects, used in five different shows, including “Peter Pan.” In this production, the crew elevated effects for a cast member to fly from the stage and across the crowd.
Freemole also shouted out past tech students who created a full-blown rainstorm on stage for a production of “Singin’ in the Rain.” This was the first musical Nugent worked on with Freemole, and he recalls being immediately impressed with her based on the intensity they were working with at the high school level.
Nugent credits the advanced stage productions to Freemole’s give-all attitude. He believes she has never slowed down once in her 42 years of teaching. If anything, she has kept a forward-thinking mindset even when the most difficult setbacks came her way.
Freemole started teaching during a time without cellphones or social media, Nugent pointed out. Each year, she had to digest the newest technological advances with lighting, sound and projections, as well as the changes in young people as technology advanced.
More recently, COVID-19 threw a curveball in Freemole’s way, forcing her to rebuild the entire program. Then, once students and staff began to return to normal, Greeley West packed up its outdated facility to move into a new state-of-the-art building. But the auditorium faced a nearly year-long delay in completion.
In 2020, three weeks before the department planned to present “Matilda the Musical,” the pandemic happened. The cast and crew of the postponed show, originally anticipated for the fall of 2022, finally got to step on stage to perform in January 2023. Once “Matilda” wrapped, Freemole pushed her students to turn around their spring musical of “Mamma Mia!” in just six weeks.
These ongoing changes and challenges never impacted her ability to relate to and inspire young students, something Nugent deeply admires.
“Her ability to be timeless is just amazing,” Nugent said. “The amount of changes that she has seen, but never wavered on, that is truly remarkable.”
One final bow
Since stepping into the theater director role, people have always asked if she has a favorite show. The answer always changes because the passion project she works on usually takes the spotlight. Right now, “Hadestown” takes the cake.
“Hadestown” will mark the fourth time Greeley West Performing Arts has performed an opera. Due to the musical’s popularity, as the winner of eight Tony Awards and the most honored show of the 2018-19 Broadway season, Freemole could see that her students wanted to go for it.
The show’s buzz and a chance to step out of their program’s comfort zone made “Hadestown” the perfect adieu to teaching for Freemole.
Greeley West High School students perform the play Hadestown during a dress rehearsal on Thursday. This will be the last play directed by long-time theater director Peggy Freemole. (Jim Rydbom/Staff Photographer)“It’s a beautiful story,” Freemole said. “It has amazing music, and it would be a new genre for us with the Greek tragedy. I like to do the newest and hottest thing, and this is definitely the newest and hottest thing right now for high school, without a doubt.”
As she prepares for retirement, Freemole said she will miss her people and school. Out of habit, just like she does during a Sunday errand, she predicts her car will still turn into the Greeley West parking lot even after her time there comes to an end.
She looks forward to her next chapter of spending time with grandchildren, traveling with friends and making time to support performing arts.
Her proudest moments can’t be minimized into one sentence, but curtain calls come to mind. The bittersweet feelings of letting go of a show but having a sense of achievement once its all said and done.
That after-show feeling sums up Freemole’s retirement from Greeley West.
“Find a place for the arts in your life,” Freemole said as a farewell message to the District 6 community.
Greeley West High School’s Harrison Barnett performs a scene from the play “Hadestown” while playing Orpheus during a dress rehearsal on Thursday. (Jim Rydbom/Staff Photographer) Read More Details
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