When watching the comedy and chaos of Framed unfold, it’s hard to believe the show didn’t even exist a few months ago. Throughout the winter term, Upper School students have been hard at work creating the show from scratch in order to tell the infamous story of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. In collaboration with director Jesse Garlick, students wrote, rehearsed, and designed the show themselves, expanding upon their unique interests and skillsets to create a wholly unique experience.
In the interview below, several students chime in on how the process unfolded and what you can look forward to when Framed debuts on Thursday, January 23 at 7:00 P.M.
When you create a show from scratch, how does the process start?
Owen Eddy ’25: The first thing we did was look at crime as a whole. We started making skits about the robbery and the guards. We then worked to frame them (see what I did there?) within the show and shape these skits into scenes. We had a lot of monologue work that let us reflect on the robbery until we had a massive collection of ideas to pull from.
Kate LaGatta ’25: After we got the topic of the show, Jesse facilitated a lot of creation exercises. For example, we were given prompts like “moment of light” and “an egg pun” and had to work them into scenes. Before winter break we were throwing a lot of things at the wall and seeing what stuck.
How does this show differ from past productions you’ve been involved with?
Kate LaGatta ’25: We’re using a lot of different staging. How you stage a show is very specific to the space you’re in, and we’re in the Roger’s Room. We have four different sections of seating and we weave in and out of them. The stage will be everywhere.
Kiernan Collins ’27: The last winter play I did was a series of vignettes, whereas this is more of an experimental anthology.
Owen Eddy ’25: It’s more of an experience. Not only do we have comedy, we have reflections on society as a whole. There’s physical comedy and stage combat that will make you gasp.
What has been your favorite part of this entire experience?
Kate LaGatta ’25: I think the monologue development. When we were told to develop a monologue from the perspective of the robbers we found a lot of funny and poignant moments.
My favorite part of the entire process has been seeing all of our monologues and scenes come together to form what I think is a pretty good show.
Toren Anderson '28
Why should someone come to see Framed?
Kate LaGatta ’25: There’s comedy, moments of sadness, and if you want to spend some time thinking of art you should come!
Owen Eddy ’25: Just seeing what we’ve created over the past few months come to life is incredible. You will laugh, you will cry, you will experience every emotion
Framed will be showing in the Roger’s Room at Beaver on Thursday, January 23, Friday, January 24, and Saturday, January 25 at 7:00 P.M.