Head-Royce's Senior Shakespeare Has More Pop Songs Than Shakespeare Planned

Neither did Shakespeare. That is the twist.

Everyone in the class participates, the letter explains, whether as an actor, as a set designer and builder, or by learning to run the lightboard. That third option is the one that matters to people like me, whose own high school stage career consisted of one line in Our Town, delivered to the wrong person, and three years of holding a ladder.

The rest of the day reads like a highlight reel. In the morning, sixth graders were starting Animal Farm, and he could tell the Russian Revolution part was going to blow them away. Then second grade, wonderfully wild by his account and without personal boundaries, where some wanted to shake hands and some wanted to hug. Then the women's varsity basketball senior night, where the team passed like the cast of Hoosiers and defended like the 1989 Pistons. Then Shakespeare, with choreography.

Elsewhere in the same letter, the students put wheels onto furniture "(and motors, too, which makes me nervous)."

That is a man who has seen a motorized sofa and still recommends the school. I trust him completely.

The play is not guaranteed every year. In 2021 the student paper listed it among the pandemic casualties, alongside the annual Lip Sync and the banging of pots and pans at the end of the first semester. A senior on the student council said she had really been looking forward to the play, and was sad not to perform with her friends and longtime classmates "in front of our families."

That is the point of a whole-class play. Somebody's family is in the audience for every job, including the ones in the dark. The lightboard operator's parents are watching the lights. The set builder's parents are watching the set, waiting for it to stand up.

The middle one has a school play next month. He has been cast as Second Guard, which has no lines. I asked whether there were any pop songs. He said, "Not yet," in a tone that suggested that if I came, there might be.