High School Drama Club Backstage, New York City, 1950s

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High School Drama Club Backstage, New York City, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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High School Drama Club Backstage, New York City, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1953–1959

AA-2026-280DB0

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A group of teenagers in a school somewhere near the 14th Street subway stop have staged what appears to be a dramatic production requiring at least two people to dress as angels, one to wear a pharaoh's orange vestments, and several others to show up in their letter sweaters on the theory that costume was someone else's department. The hand-lettered signs on the wall — one pointing to the 14th Street subway, one labeling a location called 'Lofts' — suggest the stage set is meant to represent New York City itself, which in the 1950s was the kind of ambitious choice a drama club faculty advisor would approve without fully thinking through. Two adult women stand to the right with the patient, slightly over-it expressions of people who have spent a semester herding adolescents toward this moment and are now mostly relieved it is almost over. The bulletin board behind them is dense with pinned notices and clippings, the universal sign of an organization that generates more paperwork than events. Every generation of teenagers believes their school production is doing something original, and every faculty advisor knows better but says nothing, because that is the job.

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