At Puyallup High School on March 20,1975, student actors performed A Midsummer Night Dream. This play was the very first Shakespeare play ever done in PHS.
Now as of 2025, PHS has hit their 50 years of performing Shakespeare. During some of those 50 years, drama teacher Peter Sirl has also been directing these plays.
“This will be my 29th teaching theater here at PHS,” Sirl said. “It will be my 50-year doing theater as a human being… I think it’s great! Let’s keep doing it, hopefully it will continue when I’m gone.”
Even when Sirl was a kid, he says he was interested in the magic that goes into theater.
“Well to quote from ‘A Chorus Line,’ the play about dancing, but it works with theater, why would you want to do anything else with your life?” Sirl said. “I’ve always known that it’s something I needed to do. When I was a kid, my parents would take me to live theater, it looked wonderful. And then in fifth grade I was watching a play, and I didn’t necessarily understand all of what I was seeing from a technical standpoint, but I knew I needed to be a part of it. Then the next year, I went to school, and I auditioned and I got into the show, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Sophomore Xavier Campbell, who played Boatswain in The Tempest, thinks tradition is an important thing while in theater.
“I think it’s (the 50th year) a really cool memorial almost to Shakespeare,” Campbell said. “And helping to revitalize plays that were done hundreds of years ago.”
Another actor who also shares these beliefs is junior Levi Kondowe who played Caliban in the play The Tempest.
“I’m incredibly amazed that this has been going on for so long,” Kondowe said. “I love Shakespeare so much, and I’m just glad to be a part of it.”
Sirl enjoys being able to be the director here and PHS, being able to watch people’s imaginations grow.
“I love the collaborative nature of theater,” Sirl said. “I like the fact that it allows me to work with people that are way smarter and more talented than me in certain things, and I get to be right there and watch them do their thing, that’s here and out in the world. I enjoy knowing that I’m part of a group that then creates this amazing single piece of art that other people come and enjoy.”
Similarly, Campbell also enjoys the time they spend with the others while doing theater.
“I like the camaraderie, the feeling of family that you have is being able to be with everyone and just having this feeling, laughing at people’s mistakes,” Campbell said. “But also congratulating them on their achievements and being able to help them do better… I loved playing the Boatswain because he was just a very angry character. I got to portray a side of me that not a lot of people see, I am a very chill, laid-back person most of the time. So, for a lot of the cast and for me, it was very fun to watch me get truly angry on stage.”
Likewise to what Campbell said, Kondowe too enjoys his time doing theater.
“I just enjoyed the camaraderie,” Kondowe said. “I enjoy being around the people that I genuinely love and care about and just being able to share that experience with them… I have so much love and passion for Caliban. I think that his story is worth telling, especially in today’s modern day, the story of loss and coming to terms with what you have.”
From all the years of Sirl doing this, he says he has learned a thing or two about how interested students can be a part of the magic.
“Learn as much as you can about everything you can,” Sirl said. “Go see as much theater as possible and watch good film. Be persistent; don’t give up if you’re not getting cast in things, don’t quit. Gently, not immediately after, go to a director that maybe hasn’t cast you and ask what are some specific things that I could work on to get better, give off the vibe that you’re not going to get defensive. Remember that. A quote that my friends and I have tossed around since college [is], ‘loving theater is not enough to be successful, just because you love it.’”
