Craig Duke didn’t always  have an interest in drama as a kid:“ I didn’t have an interest as a young kid but in high school yes. It’s funny actually, my mom filled out my electives unknowingly and I ended up in a drama class. At first I thought, ‘well this is terrible’ until I realized that there were a lot of fun people in there and later my best friend joined. It turned into the best thing ever as we got going.” 

For the past twenty years, Mr. Duke has been sharing that happy accident by teaching drama and directing plays at both New Providence High School and Middle School. New Providence’s Drama Department has put on spectacular shows under Mr. Duke: Chicago in 2019, The Addams Family in 2018, The Sound of Music in 2017, and Mary Poppins in 2016 are just a few. In terms of popularity, Mr. Duke feels that some of the classic plays were the most popular he’s produced:  “It’s hard to say, you know like years ago we did some big shows like Hello Dolly that were really popular. Sound of Music a couple years ago, so some of the big name classics are popular.”

Mr. Duke said he knew that some of the productions like a Disney show, Beauty and the Beast and classic plays like Mary Poppins would be huge but one that surprised Mr. Duke was Seussical,

“We did Seussical about ten years ago and that totally surprised me. Because at the time it was not a huge name. But it was super popular and people really liked it. I think it was a fun show and sometimes they just surprise you. Another show being Pirates of Penzance.” 

Every year New Providence puts on two plays, a fall play and the spring play. When asked if he thought the spring play attracted more people, he said, “ Oh definitely, the fall play is great but it’s a whole different kind of experience.” Mr. Duke added to this by saying, “ It’s usually a smaller cast, lesser known, there’s just an intimate group of people working on it.”

Mr. Duke doesn’t always expect the fall play to get a thousand people to come out. However he’s always pleased with the wide experience of it, and the comedies of the fall play are a little different in terms of working on a different scale. 

New Providence’s drama department isn’t your average high school drama department. New Providence’s theater seats around one thousand people and has a stage wider than most Broadway theaters. The stage at New Providence’s High School auditorium is around fifty feet wide, whereas Broadway stages are around 40 feet. When asked what he thought about the school’s auditorium Mr. Duke had this to say, “Like any space there are some things I would change if I could. The ability to fly scenery in and out would be great, that’s the one thing we’re kinda lacking. But I do like having a large wide stage. ”

Mr. Duke, who’s a spectacular producer, considers his strength as a producer to be the people he works with:  “ The group of people we put together as a production team I really enjoy.”

Mr. Duke mentions staff members like Mrs. Ditta, Mrs. Kirkland in years past, and currently Mrs. Alongi. Mr. Duke says he likes that they can bounce ideas around and that they have a good relationship between each other. However as a producer he would like to improve on his organizational skills: “That’s always like the one thing I need to do. I always say this year I’m gonna get it together and then it all falls apart. ” 

 This year the fall play at New Providence will be Clue. The production is based off of the movie and popular board game played by many of all ages. When asked why he thought Clue was the right choice for the fall play, he said, “ It’s a comedy so I think we’d be able to get some kids to come out for it. I always like to do something different and it was something that we hadn’t done before. Clue has a wide array of characters so knowing we had a younger group of kids coming up so I thought it’d be a good fit for the kids”.

Mr. Duke said when picking plays he uses what he has to work with as help: “ You also want something that’s challenging for the students. You don’t want them to feel like it’s too  easy or that it’s repetitive.” 

Mr. Duke, a household name throughout the middle school and high school at New Providence, considers his biggest accomplishment to be having a family where everyone is healthy and happy. My wife and I have two grown kids and a thirteen year old so we’re doing pretty good. So I’d consider a happy family to be my biggest accomplishment.” 

This years spring play will be Little Shop of Horrors. He says he chose it because “ I love the music in it. It’s one of those shows that I’ve had the opportunity to work on a couple times and it’s just so much fun.”

Little Shop of Horrors can be seen on Friday March 13th and Saturday March 14th.

You can see Clue on Friday November 15th and Saturday November 16th at New Providence High School.