Intense, artistic, and theatrical, Camille Coppola ’10 is a well-known face in the theater department. She has been in a play ten of her twelve trimesters, and has been in Acting Tutorial class for four years.
Her first Deerfield play was Columbinus, the first high school production of that play. Seventy people tried out for a cast of eight, and she felt lucky to receive a role. “It was the most incredible experience. I’ve never been in a cast that worked so hard and was so dedicated,” Coppola said.
Coppola began acting when she was four with a silent role at the Hartford Stage. “I was basically a living prop,” she said.
When she was nine, she started taking after-school classes at the Drama Studio in Springfield, MA, and during her summers she studied at the Interlochen Conservatory for the Arts in Michigan. “It’s where my training really comes from,” she said.
Her older sister Lauren Coppola ’03 also acted at Deerfield. Through her sister, Camille found herself exposed to the high quality of Deerfield Theater and met Director of Theatre John Reese.
Deerfield appealed to Coppola because it refrains from putting on the typical high school musical. “Its emphasis on straight [non-musical] theater was particularly strong.”
According to Mr. Reese, Coppola has grown since she first arrived. “She used to be afraid of comedy, so I decided to put her into situations where she couldn’t avoid it,” he noted.
Next year, she will attend Harvard, where she plans to explore the humanities. Though she loves theater, she is not sure she wants it to be her profession. Still, she intends to try out for plays in college and is even interested in trying her hand at directing and playwriting.