PARK RIDGE—A century ago, Park Ridge High School’s senior class brought down the house with its production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” presented in the school auditorium April 20–21, 1923.
In 1923 Park Ridge’s senior class had 25 students, nearly all with roles in this play. In those days Park Ridge and Westwood were the only high schools in the Pascack Valley, so Park Ridge students came from all over, not just within the borough. Helen Brennan, playing Portia, was from Montvale; Herrick Booth, as Antonio, was from Woodcliff Lake; Antoinette Pisacano, who did double duty as the Duke of Venice and Balthazar, Portia’s servant, was from Hillsdale.
That year’s seniors had attended Park Ridge High during an eventful time. The public school that served all grades in Park Ridge was built in 1909, and so the building was brand new when this class entered it years earlier as young children. When they were freshmen, in June of 1920, the school was burned to the ground in what remains to this day the largest fire in Park Ridge history. During their sophomore and junior years, classes continued elsewhere in town as the high school was being rebuilt. The new school, which was in the same location but three times larger than its predecessor, opened in 1922 as they were beginning their senior year.
The 1923 yearbook says of Park Ridge’s production of “The Merchant of Venice,” the play “was the first of its kind to be presented in the new school and was, according to [school principal] Mr. Schmerber and other competent critics, the best production ever presented as a class play in Park Ridge.”
“The settings for the play were, of necessity, very simple, but the strip arras of tan burlap formed an excellent background for the brilliant Elizabethan costumes,” the writer described. “Incidentally, the strips aided in the shifting of scenes, as they were fastened together only at the top. Thus the audience could be carried by a fairly rapid transit system from Venice to Belmont and back. A frieze of blue and brilliant red curtains for the Belmont casket scenes changed the color scheme, and the dark green curtains formed the entire background for the garden scene.”
Science teacher Carl Laurier played Elizabethan music between acts, adding to the Shakespearean atmosphere. Park Ridge High School had only 10 faculty members back then; in addition to the principal, there were teachers for history, mathematics, English, Latin, Spanish, French, physical education, and industrial arts.
— Kristin Beuscher is president of the Pascack Historical Society.