If you want to know about the time “Dead Poets Society” was filmed in Delaware in the late ’80s, there’s probably no one better to talk to than Peter Hoopes.
Not only the then-St. Andrew’s School, a student as an extra when most of the Academy Award-winning film was filmed at the private Middletown boarding school, he is also on the board of directors of The Everett, the downtown theater. Middletown where a key scene was filmed.
And to top it all off, the longtime Middletown resident has spent years teaching film studies at St. Andrew’s, sometimes even using Middletown’s big Hollywood moment in his classroom, along with his own memories of working alongside the “Dead Poets Society” star Robin Williams.
“It’s a weird confluence, right? I obviously didn’t plan all of this,” he says of his “Dead Poets” bona fides.
‘The Society of Dead Poets’ turns 35
For Hoopes and many Delawareans living in 1988, the legacy of “Dead Poets Society” on The First State remains strong as we approach the 35th anniversary of its release on Sunday, June 2.
Never before had a major movie studio shot the majority of its scenes in Delaware, much less armed with a superstar like Williams in the title role, a director as in-demand as Peter Weir (“Witness,” “Green Card,” “The Truman Show”) behind the camera, and a story by screenwriter Tom Schulman, who won Best Original Screenplay for the film.
And there it was all, in “a small farming town in the middle of nowhere,” as Hoopes remembers Middletown before its development boom over the last three decades or so. “I look back now with even more amazement than when Hollywood came here,” she says.
While the hoopla of the past is largely unknown to younger generations of Delawareans, older ones remember the excitement of filming in Middletown, New Castle and Wilmington with the 70-person film crew housed in the former Radisson Hotel on King Street in downtown Wilmington, now home. to the DoubleTree hotel.
After all, more than 1,000 Delawareans were used as actors, extras, scouts and crew in the film, which injected $8 million into the state’s economy.
The legacy lives on at St. Andrew’s School and The Everett
Some still arrive wide-eyed at the 450-seat Everett to this day, the setting for a crucial seven-minute scene near the end of the film depicting a local production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare.
If you’re familiar with “Dead Poets Society,” a sign from the movie donated to the theater still greets theatergoers at The Everett, giving some goosebumps. He says, “Henley Hall presents ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,'” in black letters on a white background.
“We don’t promote it too much and we don’t want people to think it’s the only reason we exist, but we certainly don’t hide it,” Hoopes says of The Everett, which also puts on 10 headline shows a year. like second printing movies. “People are still impressed sitting in the movie theater.”
Every five years, the quaint 102-year-old theater where popcorn still costs $2 hosts “Dead Poets Society,” filling with fans happy to reminisce about the time when Middletown was the center of attention.
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The 35th anniversary event is scheduled for Saturday, September 7. Hoopes says boxes of old archives from the film (from call sheets to other film documentation) have been found in recent years and are currently being cataloged for display in some form in the future.
While some of that movement magic still lingers at The Everett, which was built in 1922 after the city’s opera house burned down in a fire, it can also be found at St. Andrews School, but in a slightly different way .
Sure, visitors to campus will recognize Founders Hall, the school’s dining hall, and Noxontown Pond, and sometimes even ask about what Hoopes calls the school’s “Dead Poets Society tour.”
But when students who know the school hallways intimately watch the film, they can easily point out the inconsistencies as the characters move from one school setting to another. So much so that Hoopes usually doesn’t show the entire film in her classes because current students at the 95-year-old school are too distracted by how the film’s editing portrays the layout of the St. Andrews school, renamed Welton Academy. .
“They immediately start freaking out because they’re like, ‘Well, wait a minute, you can’t go from room to room,'” Hoopes says. “They created a fictitious school connecting spaces that do not exist.”
‘Spark that lit a fire’
Hoopes still points to his time as a film extra as a high school student as a major influence on the path his life took, seeing firsthand a major film production.
He entered the music production business after earning his bachelor’s degree in music composition from the College of Wooster and his Master of Music degree from the University of Miami, with his sights set on musical work in film and television.
He ended up working as a music producer and studio manager in New York City for a while, but then Middletown came calling again.
Hoopes took on the role of the school’s first director of information technology in 1998 before adding classes as a film studies instructor and directing the film studies program. Outside of school, he continues to collaborate as a screenwriter, director, editor and sound designer for films.
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“It was very influential for me, even to this day, to see how the shoots were done, how the film was put together and how all the pieces worked,” he says. “It was a spark that lit a fire in me.”
‘Oh Captain! ‘My Captain!’: In honor of the late, great Robin Williams
In the narrow balcony projector room, where original Peerless Magnarc carbon arc projectors from the 1940s are still used to display 35 millimeter prints at The Everett, a discreet nod to Williams sits on a shelf in the shape of a poster made when he died on August 11, 2014. He was 63 years old when he committed suicide at his California home while suffering from Lewy body dementia.
“RIP Robin Williams 1951-2014 ‘Oh Captain! My Captain!'” it reads, referencing his famous line in “Dead Poets Society,” a line from a Walt Whitman poem of the same name written in 1865 about the death of the president. Abraham Lincoln.
“Oh Captain! My Captain! arise and hear the bells/Arise, for you the flag flies, for you the bugle trills,” the poem reads.
The very approachable Williams left his mark on the city, mainly because he was so affable between takes, playing with students and just about anyone he encountered.
When he died, the theater’s marquee, clearly seen in the film, was changed to read “RIP Robin Williams.” Fans stopped by to pay their respects and some left bouquets of flowers at the doors of the theater.
The most public tribute to Williams’ memory at the theater can be found in seat 104 in row G, where Williams sat during the “Dead Poets Society” scene filmed at The Everett. The theater’s board of directors decided to reupholster the chair, changing the red fabric to black.
Even today, some people specifically ask for the seat when they attend a show: “It’s a small thing, but for some people it’s really special,” Hoopes says.
When you look from the stage, you now see a sea of red divided by a single black seat, forever dedicated to the beloved comic actor whose connection to Delaware has yet to fade.
“Oh Captain! My Captain!” Indeed.
Do you have an idea for a story? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (@ryancormier).
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