On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, a handful of HS students can be found warming up in preparation for their big performance. They aren’t running laps in Canons Park or shooting hoops in the gym; instead, these student actors are warming up their voices for roles in an upcoming production of A Picture of Dorian Gray with the help of their dialect coach, ASL alumnus Adam Bond ’99. “I am helping them speak the Queen’s English,” Adam jokingly quipped after a recent rehearsal. The kids under his tutelage are eager to perfect their accents, he added, and have been “clearly progressing” since he started working with them last month. “The kids are great,” Adam praised. “They are like sponges, absorbing everything.”
Adam, a professional actor, spent five years at ASL, where he was active in the School’s theater and musical ventures. Among his most memorable acting gigs are those that took place on the storied stage of ASL's old Annenberg Theater, including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and You Can’t Take it with You. The former was directed by Buck Herron (ASL 1998-present) and Scott Jeneary (ASL 1995-2001). It was Mr. Herron who recruited Adam to help out with Dorian Gray. “This is my first time being back in an ASL classroom since I was a student,” Adam explained. After high school, he went on to earn a degree in international relations at the University of St. Andrews and worked as an intelligence analyst in the States. But the siren’s call to acting persisted, and Adam returned to London in 2006 to join a postgraduate program at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Back on stage at ASL, Adam has returned home. We are delighted he has!
Productions of A Picture of Dorian Gray will run from Wednesday, 24 April, until Saturday, 27 April. Alumni are encouraged to attend. For more information, email Libby Jones, Libby_jones@asl.org.
