What you would have seen in the Black Box Theater for our 2020 spring musical would have delighted you:

Outside when you walked up to the Harris Center, you would have been greeted by our house staff, our students always glad to welcome you to Jesuit High…

In the lobby, you would have seen displays in cabinets and on tables that would have highlighted the fifty-plus students’ work on and offstage…

When you walked through the door of the Black Box, you would have been handed a 40-page program full of the names and faces of the cast and crew that have been together working since December…

When you took your seat in the theater and spent some more time reading the program, you would have seen the names of Jesuit Drama’s many donors—our Drama Patrons—whose contributions and generosity over the last 53-plus years have built the very theater you were sitting in…

Once the lights dimmed…

you would have seen a simple black box sitting on a white-painted oval framed by the forced-perspective black-panels built by our fabulous crew, and your eye would have been guided to the large video screen in back onto which our opening welcome-video would have played, featuring every member of our smiling cast, welcoming you to the show…

After that, MOV3 would have begun.

Sometimes, writing about theater is like singing about architecture:  it can be done, but it just doesn’t quite do it justice.

I am—we are all—deeply sad and disappointed that we were not able to share our show with you.  You would have loved it.  The cast was outstanding; the crew was fantastic; the staff was their usual dedicated selves.

This pandemic reminds us of the transitory, impermanent nature of the performing arts; it reminds me that while what we do can be recorded, there is just no substitution for the Real Thing:  all of us…together…in the same space…thinking about and celebrating what it means to be human…what it means to be alive.

On behalf of the staff and students of Jesuit Drama…we hope to be back together with you. Soon.

By Ed Trafton ’84, Jesuit Drama Artistic Director