Drama High: Chapters 1-2

Buffered on three sides by athletic fields, the school rises to just one story.

The sign appeared out of nowhere some years ago—tacked up to the rear wall when Volpe arrived one morning—and he knew not to ask too much about its provenance, though word did eventually filter down that some students had pilfered it from a local used car lot and that “Lou” was apparently one of the salesmen.

The sign appeared out of nowhere some years ago—tacked up to the rear wall when Volpe arrived one morning—and he knew not to ask too much about its provenance, though word did eventually filter down that some students had pilfered it from a local used car lot and that “Lou” was apparently one of the salesmen.

It is a daring choice for a high school, but a typical one for Volpe—a searingly intense drama in which...a golden-boy athlete is implicated.

The one played by Philippi ostensibly is not...

The scene is a denouement, ugly and raw.

But even though Mariela has been one of his stalwarts, she seems disengaged and in no shape to rise to the occasion and win a part.

Mackintosh’s traveling companions—business associates who had arranged this excursion—had fervent hopes for its success, but were uneasy.

In the local lexicon, Truman High, in otherwise prosperous Bucks County, is “on the wrong side of Route 1.”

Out to the left side of the road was Bloomsdale, a ramshackle, all-black enclave that its residents, employing an advanced sense of irony, had long called “Hollywood.”

Out to the left side of the road was Bloomsdale, a ramshackle, all-black enclave that its residents, employing an advanced sense of irony, had long called “Hollywood.”

Some of the other teachers gamely made conversation with Mackintosh, but the chasm was too vast.

Levittown is not technically a city or any kind of municipality.

And he was known to be fastidious about not granting permissions until he could be confident his shows would be produced to a certain standard.

He needed someone who could collaborate with MTI to pare down the show, simplify some of the music and set, while still pulling off a production that would impress Mackintosh.

Michael Kammerer, a senior, played the reformed convict Jean Valjean, and he was among those in the cast who, at Volpe’s behest, had gone trash-picking for elements of the set.

By age twelve, I was a devotee of the political columnist Mary McGrory and the muckraker Jack Anderson.

I looked at the horse-racing results because I liked the names of the horses and at the ads for the burlesque clubs because I liked the names of the dancers (Celia Phane, Pearl Harbour, Bermuda Schwartz, and so on).

One day, chasing an errant puck onto a patch of ice warmed by the sun, I fell through a crack into the frigid muck and had to be yanked by my elbows back to the surface.

He had a beautiful way of speaking—sentences and whole paragraphs just seemed to flow extemporaneously, organically.

Only a handful of high school productions each year are judged worthy of this honor, so Volpe’s drama troupe was like a college basketball team that keeps making it back to the Final Four—except that Truman was nothing like the big powerful teams that qualify for those repeat visits.

Built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, it is a grand, historic venue, but one that I never liked for that purpose because it was just a rented space; it wasn’t theirs.

My mother had died about eight months earlier, and my eighty-four-year-old father, in a natty seersucker suit, sat in a reserved section with the school board president, an old friend.

But as I stood at the podium facing the Truman High Class of 2010—including several who were children of my own high school classmates—there was providence in the moment.

Volpe does not demand decorum in any traditional way, just excellence.

“Who’s your diction coach?” a student from another school asked Bobby Ryan after the performance of Rimers.

The Lou Volpe I had known in my youth was self-effacing.

He can be amazingly unflappable in the face of the surprising and bizarre things that occur in schools, and sometimes deadpan in ways that make me laugh.

He can be amazingly unflappable in the face of the surprising and bizarre things that occur in schools, and sometimes deadpan in ways that make me laugh.

The more tests given—and the more students enrolled in rigorous courses—the higher the ranking a school achieves.

He never expounds on education theory or education reform.

He has done this right through the age of No Child Left Behind and of unyielding educational metrics, which seems to me an act of utter subversion and unwavering conviction of purpose.

Volpe expands their worldview and shows them that struggle and suffering are universal, but so are hope and resilience.

He keeps no running list of the whereabouts or exploits of his former students, which sometimes frustrates me because I want to know about them.

Brasseur did not seek out Volpe’s advice, “but I felt his presence. He’s that person you encounter in your life who shows you a bravado you didn’t know yourself that you had. It’s a gift that he gives you.”