Performing Arts
Drama at Gilman
“On the Town.” “Grease.” “Cabaret.” “Fools.” “Damn Yankees.” “The Sound of Music.” “Much Ado about Nothing.” Theatre thrives at Gilman. Through dramatics, students forge a shared sense of purpose and become an indissoluble team as they work together to mount a production. Theatre is about much more than just story telling; and, it is also about much more than a celebration of the self and one’s own abilities. To paraphrase Sophocles, dramatics reflects a spirit moving through a community, both in the audience and onstage, a shared sense of understanding and experience, and an unparalleled unity.
During the course of the school year, the tri-school community produces five plays at the Upper School level—two at Gilman, two at RPCS, and one at Bryn Mawr, not including student directed plays. Middle School thespians mount two productions annually, and even Lower School boys get into the act with myriad class plays each year. Whether on the stage or behind, each performer, musician, or stagehand shares the spotlight.
Upper School Theatre
The Upper School theatre program includes courses on campus (Shakespeare & Acting, Modern Drama) and at both sister schools; a winter acting intramural where first year students study improvisational comedy; second year students study direction and design; third-year students vie for the main stage slot in May; the Gilman Improv Club; the annual Shakespeare Festival in December; Senior Encounter theatre projects in the black box theatre in late May and early June; the Globe theatre trip, two weeks of studying Shakespearean verse, fight choreography, costume design, and Elizabethan history with professional actors, designers, and dramatists from the Globe Theatre in London during the summer; and visits from professionals in the theatre world, such as Gilman alumni Chris Taylor, producer/director of “The District,” and Nicholas Pryor, stage and screen actor and one of the founders of the Class of 1952 Drama Prize, as well as Joanne Howarth, a resident artist at the Globe Theatre in London.
