8 minute read
FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE
Four teachers describe how EHS embraces the D.C. theater scene.
Since our founding in 1839, Episcopal has embraced the vibrancy and opportunity of Washington, D.C., in all that we do. Aided by the flexibility afforded with the new schedule, today’s teachers are able to create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for their students, from seeing the First Folio of Shakespeare in person to meeting with and speaking to great minds across disciplines. The creativity and ingenuity of our faculty in providing such unique experiences for students, purposefully aligned with their curricular work, is remarkable, to say the least.
MOLLY PUGH takes students outside their comfort zones.
Since she moved to campus in 2008, English Department Chair Molly Pugh has witnessed significant changes in how Episcopal utilizes theater in D.C. In the early aughts, each grade would attend a play a year together, which ultimately became too large to be as impactful as the department hoped, according to Pugh. They decided to approach it from another angle: smaller groups, bigger impact. Since then, departments across campus have been laser focused on getting the most out of each trip to the district and the greater DMV area (D.C., Maryland, and Virginia). Her focus these days is on teaching her students to become responsible and engaged theatergoers and ultimately become responsible and engaged citizens of the world. “We always want to make these experiences as actively pedagogical as possible,” she said of constantly seeking new and creative ways to get students outside of their comfort zones at Episcopal.
Before Winter Break, Pugh’s Victorian Literature class attended A Christmas Carol at Ford’s Theatre. During intermission, Pugh encouraged her students to interview fellow audience members about their holiday traditions through ethnographic interviews, a device the English department often utilizes. To Pugh, teaching her students to be productive and engaged members of these audiences is paramount. She hopes that, by taking them to these intimate settings, they will ultimately learn to appreciate both the personal enjoyment and the collective experience that theater can provide. “My students returned from speaking with audience members with bright eyes and stories to tell,” Pugh describes. “Having spoken with people who were first-time theatergoers, as well as to those who had been coming to this show for decades, my students were amazed by how eager people were to relate their theater stories.”
WHIT MORGAN makes Shakespeare accessible.
Teaching at Episcopal since 1987, Whit Morgan has observed the evolution of Episcopal’s relationship to D.C. in a way few others have. Known as Episcopal’s legendary Shakespearean scholar, Morgan has attended countless theatrical performances throughout his time at EHS — and through his own educational journey. He was inspired to provide students with first-hand opportunities to experience, and interact with, The Bard’s work after six summers assistant teaching in Oxford, England, with a University of North Carolina program. The professor with whom he partnered, Tar Heel legend Christopher Armitage, taught theater-based courses that regularly took students to performances in London, Stratford, and Oxford. “Simply put,” explained Morgan, “after those connections with live theater, I was hooked, and my primary goal in over three decades of teaching has been to share that passion with EHS students.”
Through both semesters of his advanced English seminar, Shakespeare: Page, Stage, and Screen, students not only dig deeply into Shakespeare’s work but also augment their studies with film and live performances, with recent examples including The Tempest at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., and King Lear at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Several stage actors have also offered workshops and visited with the students, shedding light on the complexity of bringing the roles to life in different interpretations of the various works.
Thanks to Morgan, students also have enjoyed access and insight to Shakespeare’s work that few others will ever have the opportunity to experience. Through the National Endowment for the Humanities, Morgan is one of the lucky and deserving few who were selected for the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The program brings together experts and brilliant minds who develop curricula for people all over the nation to access for free on the Folger’s website. Morgan’s connections enabled trips to the Folger Shakespeare Library, including visits to the Reading Room where, at his request, they pulled a few original texts for students to see, including a First Folio from 1623. “For students to see the vault in which these texts are kept and to see the only copy in existence of some of these books provides a very visceral engagement with the works.” While the Folger Theatre has been closed for major construction since 2020, Morgan is eagerly anticipating the grand re-opening in fall 2023.
ELEANOR MOORE brings the Francophone world closer.
For the first time in several years, Chair of the Modern and Classical Languages Department Eleanor Moore was able to bring her classes back to the French Embassy, also known as La Maison Française, to reconnect with D.C.area Francophiles and fully immerse students in French culture, right in our backyard. Moore, a French teacher at EHS since 1999, has often benefited from the School’s proximity to events that put French culture in the spotlight. In addition to her engagement with opportunities in D.C., she also leads the EHS-Lycée Stanislas student exchange program to further students’ access to the French language and intercultural experiences.
Moore and her colleague Carmen Carraway recently took several French classes — Advanced French Language, Advanced Topics in Francophone Cultures, and French 5 — to the embassy to enhance their appreciation of famed French singer Edith Piaf. The students were able to take in the 90-minute musical performance which featured Nathalie Lermitte singing many of Edith Piaf’s most famous songs in two non-stop sets accompanied by musicians on piano, accordion, drums, xylophone, and double bass.
The concert went hand in hand with their lessons in real time. The students in all three classes had encountered Piaf’s name, story, and songs in the context of learning about the French Resistance (Advanced Topics) and with an eye toward considering her art and her career as they relate to the themes of beauty and world challenges (Advanced French Language). As she has done so often, Moore loved seeing the students take part so fully in the events of the evening as they took in the show, mingled with other members of the audience during intermission, and immersed themselves in French culture and history.
For students to see the only copy in existence of some of these books provides a very visceral engagement with the works.
MIKE REYNOLDS has students dig deeper.
Social studies teacher Mike Reynolds aims to get his students thinking independently. It’s not just about the “what” of history; it’s the “how” and the “why,” according to him. Instrumental in researching the role enslaved people played in our School’s pre-Civil War history, Reynolds has channeled that dedication to studying what his class calls “hard history” throughout his 14 years at Episcopal.
In his work, Reynolds has collaborated frequently with Dr. Will Thomas ’82 P’16 ’17, a historian, author, producer, and professor at the University of Nebraska. When Thomas’s most recent animated film, “The Bell Affair,” premiered at Old Greenbelt Theatre in Greenbelt, Md., Reynolds jumped at the chance to take students in his advanced research seminar that focuses on the history of EHS, Virginia, and D.C. The film tells the story of Daniel and Mary Bell, who sued for their freedom from slavery. Once their re-enslavement was threatened again, the Bells led one of the largest escape attempts in American history of over 75 people, directly from D.C.’s historic wharf.
Reynolds spoke of one student who had grown up in D.C., spent countless evenings hanging out at the wharf with friends, and marveled that she had never heard of this historic event. Reynolds predicted that half of the audience was descended from the families portrayed in the film, further bringing history to life for EHS students. As for what he wants students to take away from the class, he says he wants them to know how to dig deeper and ask the hard-hitting questions. “It’s asking those questions about who we want to be as a country. We have an amazing history, but we haven’t always lived up to it. So where are those moments in history where we can look and see when we have lived up to it?”
