PERFORMANCE
Theater at Darrow—Serious Craft, Real Stakes
Theater here is not about applause. It is about presence, clarity, and the ability to hold a moment without forcing it. Students learn to express ideas with precision and to collaborate without losing their own voice. The work is focused and intentional. Every rehearsal has a purpose. Every production has weight.
Students do not simply memorize lines. They learn how to listen with attention, how to move with intention, and how to make choices that carry meaning. They work onstage and backstage, building sets, designing lighting, calling cues, and understanding how a production comes together from first read to final curtain.
This is how students grow into artists who can speak for themselves, lead when needed, and stand steady under pressure.
What Students Gain
They learn to take critique as part of the work.
They learn to collaborate at a professional pace.
They learn to follow through when it counts.
They learn to communicate clearly and confidently.
They learn to mean what they say.
Skills that matter everywhere, not just on stage.
Program Culture
Rehearsals are direct, and demanding in the best way.
Focus is expected.
Accountability is shared.
No one is performing at the surface level.
Everyone grows because the environment supports it.
Theater at Darrow is about being true.
Production Season
Fall Play—A full-scale production with sustained rehearsal discipline. Students learn to build and maintain performance over time.
Winter One-Acts—Short-form work led largely by students. This is where risk happens and new voices emerge.
Spring Show—A culminating production that draws together the skills, confidence, and presence developed throughout the year.
Every production follows the same expectations—show up, do the work, elevate each other, finish strong.
STUDENT
LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITY
Are you interested in all facets of theater life? You can apply to become a Darrow Theater Workshop Prefect! Work Set individual goals in your craft while learning all aspects of supporting a theater company!
(After Darrow Theater Prefectships, students have gone onto careers in stage management, directing, acting, lighting, costume design, and filmmaking!)
Led by Emily Curro
Emily doesn’t teach students to perform; she teaches them to work. Rehearsal is not a place to wait for inspiration. It is a place to practice attention, intention, and accountability. Students learn to make choices that are specific and defensible. They learn to listen harder than they speak. They learn that honesty on stage is a muscle, not a mood.
Emily comes from the world of new work and high-standard collaboration. She has built theater inside warehouses, storefronts, historic spaces, and traditional houses with equal conviction. She has led teams, directed productions, shaped organizations, and held artists to standards that bring out clarity instead of theatrics. That sensibility is what drives Darrow’s program: theater that is lived, not presented.
Her rehearsal room is direct. Focused. Generous. No wasted motion. No empty gestures. Students are expected to meet the work where it is, not where it is comfortable. And because the bar is real, the growth is real.
The result is a program where students learn how to stand in themselves — on stage, in a classroom, in conversation, in life. Not louder. Clearer.
Under Emily’s leadership, theater at Darrow is where students learn to mean what they say.
