High School Stars Take the Stage
Seattle High School students dazzle with a massive production of 'The Mikado,' featuring elaborate hoop and fan drills.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The presentation of the 'Mikado' by pupils of the high school at the Seattle Theater on Tuesday night was a brilliant success. The chorus was composed entirely of girls from the high school, with sixteen others in the hoop drill from the eighth grade of the Central. The hard and constant work required to train the chorus and stage the piece was performed by Mr. H. Sherman Sharpe, instructor of music. The arrival of Koko, the lord high executioner, was signalized by a jubilee chorus and a guard of the Cadet Corps. In the second act, the sixteen eighth-grade girls performed a hoop drill, followed by a sash drill, which was an unqualified success. The most interesting feature of this was the star figure formed by Gertrude Paige in the center, holding the end of each of the girls' sashes. This was followed by a fan drill and a tambourine drill by sixteen girls in red. Mrs. Huff-Carlin as Katisha was remarkable, and Teddy Gamble, the two professionals in the cast, were excellent.
“At the word 'Defer! Defer! To the lord high executioner,' the members of the chorus bent forward, touching their foreheads to the stage.”
This reflects the early 20th-century tradition of using public school performances as major civic social events. Today, while school arts programs persist, the level of professional staging and the presence of city elites in the theater boxes highlights how much the school was the center of social status in 1893 Seattle.
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