Theatre
If there is a common theme to the Middlesex Theatre Program, it is ambition. We choose shows every season to stretch and grow the talents of our student casts and crews. We want all students to have appreciation of AND participation in the making of theater. We believe that there is no show too big for our stage.
The Middlesex Theatre Program draws kids from all areas of the school. We believe that passion for theater is intensified, rather than diminished, by academic and athletic passions. In any given year, either through a course or through an evening production, close to a third of the school will participate in a public theatrical performance.
Students in our Theatre Department are actors, singers, and dancers. They are directors, scene-writers, set designers, light technicians, and stage managers. You can see our youngest students debut in an evening of original, student-written scenes; and you can watch our oldest students perform full productions of challenging, modern material in our black box theatre. Annually, we produce five exceptional main-stage performances:
• A fall play
• A student directed children’s play
• A dance concert
• A festival of student directed one acts
• A spring musical
Finally, our Theatre Department has a life off campus as well. During our biennial trip to London we see a show each night, tour Shakespeare’s Globe, and participate in several days of acting workshops with a professional director. Though for many of our students, theater is something they will only pursue in high school, there are others who will graduate and continue their study of theater in the finest college programs out there: Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Northwestern, UCLA, BU and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, to name a few recent destinations.
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Our Recent Main Stage Shows
In navigating the societal pressures of their class and time, sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood must each answer a question vital to their happiness: When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart?
Set in gossipy, late 18th-century England, playwright Kate Hamill’s contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility entertained Middlesex audiences on two nights in November with its humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality, not to mention the production’s period costumes, pop/classical soundtrack, and remarkable, revolving set. View a full gallery here.
In a West Virginia cave, three teenagers make a startling discovery: a feral “bat boy” – half-boy, half-bat – with a thirst for blood. With a book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, and music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe, this American horror rock musical was based on a 1992 tabloid story in the Weekly World News. Mirroring its hybrid title character, Bat Boy is part comedy, part romance, and part tragedy – giving Middlesex performers and their audiences the full spectrum of emotions to engage and process on two nights last May. View a full gallery here.
In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie was an international celebrity, and glow-in-the-dark watches were the latest rage. Then, the girls who painted those watch dials began to die.
Based on the true story of the women and men who worked for the U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey – and the factory girls who made labor history – D. W. Gregory’s play Radium Girls intrigued Middlesex audiences on November 10 and 11. Poignant and thought-provoking, the fast-paced drama gave students much to consider about how the voices of science and women are valued when those very voices may stand in the way of profit. View a full gallery here.
With her signature pink style and positivity, Elle Woods enrolls at Harvard Law School, determined to prove she is the serious kind of girl her ex-boyfriend Warner says he can marry. As in the book and movie of the same name, things don’t go according to plan for Elle as she discovers that her happiness lies more in her own strengths than in the man she thought she needed. View a full gallery here.
Sheridan’s classic comedy of manners brought gossip, intrigue, romantic entanglements, and – of course – some scandal to the Kaye Theatre on November 11th and 12th, much to the enjoyment of Middlesex audiences. Veteran and novice performers in gorgeous period costumes and impressive wigs, backed by a surprising punk rock soundtrack, made this famous farce an entertaining way to close out a busy fall on campus. View a full gallery here.
A one-act play written by Sarah DeLappe, The Wolves follows a high school girls’ soccer team as they warm up for a series of games, preparing for battle. Amid warmups and passing drills in practice, the undefeated Wolves psych each other up—and dive into rapid-fire, unfiltered conversations about the world and their places in it. What happens when life both on and off the field tests the team’s endurance?