For the last seven years the stage at Lane Tech High School has been lit by innovative productions of classic comedies and tragedies staged by an English teacher named Randall Bates.
For their part, Bates and his students suspect he was fired as punishment for having exposed serious safety hazards in the school’s auditorium. But whatever the reason, Bates’s sacking has been a disaster for the school at Addison and Western, a classic example of a top-down ultimatum delivered without explanation or consultation or regard for anyone even remotely involved. In one fell swoop Schlichting managed to enrage students, decimate a fine theater program, turn off prospective freshmen, and tarnish Lane’s reputation by making it look like some sort of backwater run by blockheads.
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If all that’s not bad enough, the firing has forced the cancellation of The Diary of Anne Frank, which Bates had planned to stage in the fall. The new drama teacher told students Anne Frank’s story is too somber for her–she prefers light comedies and musicals. Apparently they don’t deny the Holocaust at Lane Tech; they only ignore it.
In this way, Bates tried to use drama as a way to interest students in reading and literature. “I ask a lot from the students, but they come through,” says Bates. “The hardest thing for me is turning kids down at auditions. We double-cast as much as possible but there’s always some disappointed kids. I tell them not to worry, stay at it and you’ll get better. I encourage them to build the set and work on props and to try again. We have wonderful stories. We had one student, Kristen Petrillo, who had her stage debut as a dead body. Before it was over she had major roles in Our Town and Playboy of the Western World.”
After that, Bates thought the problem was solved. The spring performance of The Children’s Hour went well, and on May 16 Bates issued flyers announcing auditions for Anne Frank. The next day Schlichting called him into his office.
Foley contends that students will benefit from the change. “From what I understand they will be doing things by going out in the community,” says Foley. “They’ll be doing skits and songs at old people’s homes and orphanages.”
