School portraits / On and off stage, 2024–25
Windward’s New Head Would Quite Like to Know What Happens Next
Sarah Beck joined the faculty improv show. The students were ready to welcome her; a script was not part of the welcome.
Sarah Beck approached her first day as head of Los Angeles’s Windward School with several alarms set and her outfit chosen. That was August 2025. By December, she had also tried faculty improv.
There is only so much advance preparation can do for you.
She confessed to the student newspaper that the improv show had made her nervous. The students had encouraged her beforehand; at rehearsal, they chanted her name.
A new job usually gives you a little time to perfect your competent expression. Improv invites another person to change the situation while you are still arranging your face. You cannot really ask to take the matter away and circulate some thoughts on Monday.
What Beck wanted to show was that a leader could be vulnerable and enjoy herself. What she discovered was that some of her funniest moments had been things she had not noticed herself doing. That seems a particularly thorough way to surrender control of your introduction.
I find the students’ part rather touching. Here was the new adult in charge, and they were the ones helping her feel comfortable. Adults do tend to schedule the confidence-building for somebody else.
Before telling a teenager not to worry what people think, I might try doing something ridiculous in front of thirty of them. Perhaps not this week. I have a busy week.