75. Theater

Dalton’s commitment to support theater as an art form dates back more than 60 years! Teachers encourage students to participate; a range of classes and productions are offered each year. Here are photos of performances from the last few decades.

This is the program for the first production I directed at Dalton — 2 one-act plays to be performed with intermission by the Middle School. I present it not because members of that cast have become professional actors, dancers, a novelist, PhDs (x3), a district court law clerk, and a documentary filmmaker, but rather because of the process of choosing these plays to me makes manifest what is a fundamental tenet of Dalton relationship to theater.

I remember asking my Department Chair, Becky Guy, what I should direct for my first play. She replied “what would you like to direct?” This was 1985. Becky had been there more than a decade. She had worked under Anne McKay who had been there for decades before that. This means that I am a direct beneficiary of at least 60 years of Dalton’s commitment to support theater as an art form to be taught and practiced by teachers and students driven by their love and devotion to it. It keeps theater alive for any student who’s interested. That theater is so honored by the institution is a glorious thing. As the 1936 Senior Class wrote in their yearbook, “…somehow it was always difficult to get off the stage.” We still seem to have a hard time getting the kids off the stage and hopefully will for many years to come.
—Robert Sloan, Middle and High School Theater Teacher, Theater Department Chair