An extraordinary, long forgotten theatrical event

I've had a long, productive career as a playwright. My resume lists 51 play openings between 1970 and 2005. Of course, most of these are very minor and insignificant. But the list speaks to an active career until recently.

I remind you of this to put in context a theatrical event I generated with high school seniors at The Catlin Gabel School a quarter century ago. It's one of the more extraordinary theatrical events I've ever been associated with.

In the late 80s I was invited to serve three months at Catlin Gabel, a private school with very high standards, as a writer in residence. I jumped at the opportunity. It turned out so well they wanted me to stay longer but for this had to go into another funding source, so I followed the residency with a 2nd 3-month residency as scholar in residence. Six months at Catlin Gabel, working with a dozen bright seniors interested in writing and theater, for which I was very well paid. My classroom was a CABIN at the edge of the woods near the soccer field. Talk about a gift from the gods!

Back in the woods, the cabin of my classroom

For their term project, they decided to write and perform a short hyperdrama. A hyperdrama! I couldn't believe it but naturally was delighted. So I guided them through the process and directed the play. The process was incredible because these kids were so bright and so ambitious. They even wrote and produced a short film, a film within the play, which was a satire of the short film sent by the school to parents of prospective students. The film was in French with subtitles. The central conflict in the play was the rebellion of students against the Catlin administration's desire to make French the official language on campus. They all hated French ha ha.

There was one "free spirit" among the students, a hippy girl of hippy parents, who didn't want to do any but her own thing. How to fit her in? The kids came up with a brilliant solution -- she was a Catlin Gabel ghost and she would wander through the action of the play at will, reciting her poetry, and some of the cast members could see the ghost and others couldn't. It worked out great!

The play was witty, funny, complex, layered, mysterious, almost coherent, just a delight to see grow and bloom. On production night, the audience of parents and Catlin community members was mostly bewildered and lost but the kids knew what a great job they had done and I was amazed by them, a very proud director who deserved little credit.

The play got no notice anywhere except in the school newsletter. Almost no one saw it. It was only done once. And yet it is very high on my list of theatrical events I've been a part of. Those kids were amazing. I bet it's one of the few, and maybe even the only, hyperdramas ever written and performed by high school students. The film within the play was worth the price of admission. Imagine all the work they did!

What an amazing event. Seen by almost no one.