In the last week of January, the cast of Paideia’s spring musical, “Spamalot,” performed three shows. This musical, originally written by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, tells the story of King Arthur and his knights’ search for the Holy Grail through song and comedy. This production featured not only singing and acting from students, but also was helped by a tech crew, who built and designed all of the sets. The music was completely created by a live pit made up of Paideia students from both band and orchestra. This musical was an impressive display of the musical and acting talent of the Paideia high school.
This winter, Paideia’s acting troupe performed “12 Angry Jurors,” an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s famous 1954 play directed by Jessie Evans and Lucas Riobo ’27. “12 Angry Jurors” is a dramatic play about how bias and prejudice affect people in a life-or-death situation. The play follows a jury that has to decide whether a man who allegedly committed murder gets to live.
The jury begins as a hung jury because one man, played by Drew Hillmire ’25, believes there is doubt on whether the man is guilty. Over the course of an hour, the entire jury gradually let go of their bias and prejudices and realized that the man on trial was innocent. The play, despite being created in the 1950s, has a lot of resemblance to modern life, and, as Mia Natale ’27 told me, the Paideia Acting Troupe played into this, as there were subtle references spoken throughout the play, and a cleverly placed Donald Trump portrait in the background.
After weeks of dedicated practice, Paideia’s actors pulled off two stunning shows for the community.
