I was delighted to read in last week’s Press that the Bromfield theater program will be “revitalized.” The long article briefly discussed its past few years and hopes for its future but didn’t even allude to the 30-plus years when it was perhaps the top high school theater program in Massachusetts.
Michael McGarty, from a New York theater family, ran it for 34 years, retiring in 2012. (He also founded the Harvard Community Theater and ran that from 1990 to 2012.) During his tenure, Bromfield punched way above its weight, winning six first-place awards between 1983 and 2003 from the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild (now the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild, METG). Only two schools, out of over 100, won more, both with about three times as many students. When McGarty left Bromfield he became the head of the METG.
Bromfield theater in those decades was the equivalent of the Celtics from 1957 to 1986 or the Patriots from 2001 to 2019. So when you think Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Robert Parish; or Bill Belichick and Tom Brady; think Michael McGarty too. Flags honoring many prize-winning productions hang in the lobby of Bromfield’s auditorium.
Of course the Press must focus on the news—what is happening now—but it should also provide relevant historical context. Surely awareness of the most vital decades of Bromfield’s theater program is relevant to its intended revitalization.
Billy Salter
Elm Street
