Straight Plays For High School

NPR Ed published the first-ever database of the most popular loftier school plays and musicals in the U.S. in July 2015. Today, the 2020 numbers are out, so nosotros've updated our original story.

Mary Poppins is out and Matilda is in, according to the new high school theater rankings from the Educational Theatre Association. The meridian spot for loftier school musicals went to The Addams Family, a show that's been hanging around the top 10 listing for the last decade. Mamma Mia! was the second most-popular, making an appearance on the list for the second year (the rights for schools recently became available). Cinderella rounded out the Top 10 listing — a new addition this yr.

For full-length plays, Clue finally beat out Almost, Maine (the well-nigh pop product for high schools this decade) for the No. 1 spot. The rankings come up out every bit schools across the land are being challenged to adapt their theater and concert performances to online platforms because of the coronavirus.

For Vernon Hills High Schoolhouse in Illinois, Inkling was a bang-up choice because of its creativity and humor, says Stephanie Freichels, the school's theater director. "It combines mystery with some really great physical comedy," she says. "There are secret passageways and over-the-top characters."

The school wasn't able to perform the show as planned last spring due to the coronavirus, so over Zoom, the cast and crew created a radio drama. They sold tickets and streamed the sound for "ane nighttime only!" in May.

This year, 85 percent of nearly 3,300 schools surveyed past the EdTA said they had canceled performances, and many educators say they'll feel the financial impact from that this twelvemonth.

Coin made from ticket sales in the bound often funds the fall shows. For most half of the schools surveyed, fiscal losses from cancelled shows mean cutbacks for adjacent year's theater and arts-related activities. At Vernon Hills Loftier, where they're planning to hold classes remotely in the autumn, staff are notwithstanding working on a plan for theater. Perchance some other radio play is in their hereafter!

The back story

Even though I myself did not bask in the glow of the loftier school stage, I exercise accept fond memories of working behind the scenes, as stage coiffure. Dressed in black, I rushed the bed onstage for Tevye'due south dream sequence in Fiddler on the Roof.

The Most Popular High School Plays And Musicals

I've also spoken with many people who weren't involved in theater at all but can still — for some reason — recall the shows their schools performed.

There'south merely something well-nigh the high schoolhouse phase.

All of this got me wondering: What are the most popular high schoolhouse plays and musicals?

As it turns out, the answer is in Dramatics — the monthly magazine for theater students and teachers. It's been publishing an annual ranking of the near popular loftier schoolhouse plays and musicals since 1938.

The NPR Ed team analyzed more 100 pages of data from one-time issues of Dramatics magazine. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

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LA Johnson/NPR

The NPR Ed team analyzed more than 100 pages of data from old bug of Dramatics magazine.

LA Johnson/NPR

No one had ever compiled the data. The information wasn't fifty-fifty digitized. Then in the winter of 2014, Don Corathers, the mag'south editor, began digging through the archives for hard copies of each original issue — nearly 100 pages in all.

During the procedure, he wrote to explain a delay: "What's taking so long, other than the lark of publishing a magazine, is that we have to locate the articles in bound copies in lodge to browse them."

Eventually, he found them all, made copies — a huge stack — and mailed them to the NPR Ed team hither in Washington, D.C. And last twelvemonth, NPR Ed compiled the data. Today, we've updated the collection.

The plays

Over the past 78 years, the most popular plays have consistently been Our Town and You Can't Accept It with You, according to our analysis.

Why, yous ask?

"Almost high school teachers demand a large bandage, lots of female roles, and something that won't scare your grandma," says Corathers, who has been with Dramatics since 1979.

For both plays: bank check, bank check and check.

You lot Can't Take It with You has been performed and then frequently that it led to this cheeky 2008 photo caption: "You Can't Accept It with You — but patently you can perform it forever."

Indeed. Even into the 1980s it was the most-produced high schoolhouse play in America, topping the list every twelvemonth that decade simply one, 1982, when it fell but curt of Our Town.

Oldies but goodies

One thing is obvious: These plays are old.

"The consciousness of school theater seems to be stuck in about 1954" — and then says a 1992 issue of Dramatics. And in 2007: "Our straight plays are getting older. A lot older."

"In the '60s the language and subject matter inverse," explains Corathers. "It was also excruciatingly expensive to put on a play, so new plays had small casts. People were just non writing plays that could be produced in high schools."

In 1976 — noticing that schools were eschewing new for old — the mag'south editors wrote an op-ed. They urged schools to produce more contemporary works.

"Only four plays are fresh to the listing this yr," editor Thomas Barker bemoaned. "Iv of sixty-eight."

Barker's argument: Theater should reflect society, and social club had changed.

A year later — with little motility in the rankings — the editors backed downwards:

"No more going out on limbs, no more coaxing, no more labored assay," they wrote. "Nosotros volition allow the charts speak for themselves."

And Corathers believes that, even today, those one-time staples of the stage are still relevant. Skilful theater is expert theater, he says, no thing when it was written.

Looking at the nearly lxxx years of information, some other trend stands out: More often than not, popular plays stayed pop over fourth dimension.

Corathers offers this caption: School theater directors and educators use the magazine's survey to find ideas for next year. The rankings make it easy for a theater managing director to sell the school's principal on a condom slate.

In curt, says Corathers: "The list becomes self-perpetuating."

Oh, the musicals!

Musicals didn't really make waves in rankings until 1960. But Adieu Farewell Birdie and Oklahoma! have been the most popular titles ever since.

In contempo years, musical tastes appear to have shifted, with more contemporary titles moving up the list.

Disney Theatrical plays a substantial role. "Alive theater is adapting animated films," says Corathers, pointing to Beauty and the Creature. "They are instantly family-friendly. They are familiar stories with swell songs and lovely music."

In 2009, Dramatics noted that Memorial High Schoolhouse in Houston was on trend every bit it performed Disney'south Beauty and the Creature — the top-ranked musical of the electric current decade.

But don't retire the standards just yet. During the 1963-64 schoolhouse twelvemonth, the magazine highlighted a functioning by Preston High Schoolhouse in Preston, Idaho, of Goodbye Bye Birdie — the fourth well-nigh pop musical of the 1960s. It then cracked the pinnacle five in the '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s.

The rights to perform

One final tidbit. The popularity of many productions (peculiarly musicals) seems to depend about entirely on licensing. Loftier schools tin't produce a show until information technology has run its course on Broadway and in regional theaters.

In 1975, the amateur performance rights for Godspell became available, and it's rumored that the licensing agency's telephone switchboards were jammed for days after. That yr, Godspell was the top high schoolhouse musical.

Same's true for Les Miserables. The school version was released in 2002. And by 2003, it had cracked the top of the list.

A caveat

For many of these years, the Dramatics data set for high schoolhouse productions served as more of an index than a comprehensive ranking. Our own Bob Mondello (movie critic, yep, but also a theater aficionado) reminds us that "the Educational Theater Association is but polling its fellow member schools in the lists it prints in Dramatics. The organization had 500 members in 1938; it has close to v,000 today."

Corathers estimates most 12,000 high schools in the U.South. take drama programs.

For 2017, the survey's reach widened, with more than than iii,000 schools responding. For the start time, the survey asked how many people came to encounter them. The answer? Nearly 50 million.

How We Did This

In a spreadsheet, we compiled separate lists of the plays and musicals listed in Dramatics' annual survey. Considering of inconsistencies in the lists over time (some years included the number of schools while others listed only a rank), we scored shows according to their rank in a given yr: 15 points to the No. i show, xiv points to the second, and so on. Any bear witness that ranked below 14 was awarded 1 point. For more data on this project, electronic mail npred@npr.org.