– There are multiple videos on Youtube of high school productions of Follies, where teenagers in gowns, tuxes and helmetlike silver wigs sing of their midlife agony. Some of these productions look costly, and when a 15-year-old Sally makes very deliberate movements during the torchy “Losing My Mind”, you can sense the presence of a passionate Corky St. Clair drama coach lurking nearby and miming those movements in the wings.
– There’s nothing better than a WASPy prep school production of Death of a Salesman, where the 14-year-old son of a hedge fund manager wearily sets down his suitcases and bemoans the fate of the working man in America.
– I’ve always had a fondness for the one-acts in the back of the Samuel French catalogue, for use by kids in elementary schools. The titles of these plays will often involve the words bunny, springtime, Betsy, Mr. Brown, lunch and hello.
– Ambitious drama teachers in progressive schools enjoy presenting slightly expurgated versions of Rent, Spring Awakening, Hair and Cabaret. Somehow a handsome jock is always recruited for the cast.
– There’s often a girl, maybe a cheerleader, who’s never been a drama club geek until she’s cast as say, Sandy in Grease or Kim in Bye Bye Birdie. She’s got a decent singing voice and all of a sudden she’s tempted – but she still usually ends up as a Marketing major at a state school.
– All-girls schools perform an adaptation entitled Twelve Angry Women.
– There is nothing more wonderfully passionate than just about any drama club production.
