Westfield actors and technicians are seeing a new face around the Westfield Black Box this year. Her name is Zoe Dillard and she is the assistant theater arts director. She comes to us from Cooper Middle School. She teaches five classes of Theater 1 (comprised of mostly freshmen) during the day, sharing the 280 students enrolled in our theater department this year with theater arts director, Scott Pafumi, who teaches upperclassmen.
In addition to many other activities, Dillard directed "Romeo and Julie/ Slashed," a 30-minute parody of Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet that played at the Folger Shakespeare Festival on March 14.
"Mrs. Dillard is a lot of fun to work with and she has a very different point of view than Mr. Pafumi, which really helps me learn how to work with different people," said junior Chris Ercolano (Mercutio).
Dillard is also keeping busy this spring as the assistant director to Scott Pafumi for the spring main stage "Fiddler on the Roof," and she will also be the assistant director for Westfield Summer Stage's "Beauty and the Beast" and will teach in the Young Actors' Workshop, a summer children's theatre program.
"I really like having Mrs. Dillard as a teacher," said freshmen Jonathan Goldsmith, "She has some interesting ideas and I think that she can add a lot to the department."