Drama Productions

Drama plays an important and significant part in the life of every Waldorf School. Why this is so is answered by the intrinsic quality of the curriculum, which calls for dramatic expression in the most multifaceted and diverse ways. Drama is a fruit that grows naturally within the garden of daily school work—all encompassing, for every aspect of the curriculum can be incorporated in the dramatic work. It is both a great relief as well as a trying challenge for the teacher, because it requires not only that he or she must strive to become an artist but also must be able to develop insights into what the children need at different stages of their development. Content and subject matter are lifted to a different level, penetrating and impressing itself upon the student in a more intense manner. The transformative power of drama is tremendous—hence the immense responsibility of the teacher.

Students are especially accessible through drama, eager to be guided and inspired to grow beyond themselves into the character they embody. By bringing music, dance, eurythmy, stage sets, and costumes into the production, students experience a working together of the arts that enhances all aspects involved and often makes drama into some of the most memorable and transformative experiences of their school life. It is wonderful and awe-inspiring to see with what enthusiasm (an imperative ingredient) the dramatic work has been taken up and manifested in Hawthorne Valley School. One only has to take a cursory glance at the list of plays performed over the course of the previous years to be positively impressed by what has been accomplished.

We might, however, be moved to inquire: Why is there an emphasis on the performance of plays? This question can even be expanded further to: Why does the human being have a predisposition for PLAY as such? A quote from Friedrich Schiller is enlightening:

"The human being only plays there, where he is fully human—in the highest sense of the word; and he is only truly human, there where he plays."

Past Plays Performed by the 10th and 12th Grades

2004
10th Grade:
12th Grade: Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick

2003
10th Grade:
12th Grade:

2002
10th Grade: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
12th Grade: Silas Marner by George Eliot (with music composed and adapted by Eric Müller)

2001
10th Grade: The Alcestiad, or A Life in the Sun by Thornton Wilder
12th Grade: Man of La Mancha by Mitch Leigh, Joe Darion, Dale Wasserman

2000
10th Grade: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
12th Grade: Silas Marner by George Eliot (with music composed and adapted by Eric Müller)

1999
10th Grade: The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giradoux
12th Grade: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (adapted for the stage by Tim Kelley)

1998
10th Grade: The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder (with music from Hello, Dolly!)
12th Grade: State of Siege by Albert Camus

1997
10th Grade: A Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Grade: Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick