Theater Program

The Theatre program offers a variety of extracurricular opportunities for students in the Middle and Upper School. Upper School students may participate in two mainstage productions per year—a fall musical and a spring drama. Recent musicals include Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Les Misérables, Wonderful Town, and Guys and Dolls. Recent spring productions include The Skin of Our Teeth, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Crucible, and Take Her, She’s Mine. In 2002, The Performing Arts Department collaborated with Tony-nominated writer and director, Stuart Ross, to present the world premiere of The Sounds of Plaid, a large-cast, co-ed version of Mr. Ross’s international smash hit Forever Plaid. In the summer of 2004, The Sounds of Plaid was re-mounted and presented at The International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Theatre program’s dedication to new plays continued in the spring of 2004 with Killing Time, a full-length play written by Buckley student Alexis Gale. The 2006 spring drama is Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman and Christopher Sergel, and will run from March 9–11 in the Roy Disney Family Pavilion.

Middle School students are also invited to audition for the Upper School productions if the play is deemed appropriate and can benefit from younger performers. The Middle School Theatre program was greatly expanded in 2004 with the introduction of a play exclusively for Middle School students. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the inaugural production and was presented at the beautiful Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. The 2005 offering was The Tolstoy Story Play, and on Friday, May 5, 2006, the Middle School drama will feature original work by the first-ever Middle School playwriting class.

In addition to performance opportunities, students may participate in the technical theatre areas of set building, lighting, costumes, properties, make-up, assistant directing, and stage management.