Special to The Swellesley Report courtesy of the Wellesley High School Bradford and Parents of Performing Students (POPS). This is one in a series of POPS Senior Profiles we’ll be publishing.
Kindergarteners are dressed in bunny ears, spring flowers are taped on a paper backdrop, and plastic eggs litter the floor in the aftermath of another successful skit. Ciara Caffrey ’25 was one of these kindergarteners: she started her theater journey by writing, directing, and performing skits for holidays. She continued to be involved in theater through LINX camps and middle school plays, but she did not fully realize her enthusiasm for it until high school.
“I mostly bought into theater in high school when I started reading more plays and taking acting classes. That was when I started to feel very seriously passionate about the craft of acting and the art of theater,” said Caffrey.
The Insanity of Mary Girard. (Photo by Brooke Simko)
In high school, Caffrey has taken all four years of acting classes—taught by Ms. Kara Sullivan for the first three years, and then by Mr. Skylar Grossman for her senior year.
“I came out of my shell and became more open to being on stage through the acting classes, and that gave me the confidence to audition for things, which let me be in so many productions last year and this year,” said Caffrey.
Grossman lauds Caffery’s energetic and dedicated presence in class, and how being a team player makes her an inspiring role model for her peers.
“She is a joy to work with, really intelligent and thoughtful, and brings a lot of insight to conversations that pertain to theater,” said Grossman.
Throughout her years at the high school, Caffrey has been involved in plays including Eurydice, Twelve Angry Jurors, Men on Boats, The Insanity of Mary Girard, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Half-Life of Marie Curie, Secret in the Wings, and Small Mouth Sounds.
“[Caffrey] was one of the two seniors that auditioned, were cast, and participated in my fall play, Secret in the Wings, and was a standout in that,” Grossman said.
Besides acting, Caffrey contributes to the plays through her dramaturgy work. Dramaturgy is the study of the historical aspects of the play. For Caffrey, this involves researching the historical context, people, references, and language used in the play to give actors a better sense of how they should act.
“Secret in the Wings was about a bunch of old, not very well known fairy tales, so she researched about the origins of the fairy tale, the culture significance, and explained how the fairy tales differed from what we were presenting,” said Natalia Medina ’26, a fellow actor and friend of Caffrey.
Although she doesn’t usually participate in musicals, Caffrey was also the dramaturg for this year’s musical, Anything Goes, creating a glossary of historical individuals and jargon found in it.
“Beyond doing the dramaturgical work, Ciara is heavily involved with the onstage aspect of being a performer. She is a Class A individual—working to achieve high success rates when it comes to being a team player, collaborating, and being mindful of her other counterparts when she’s on stage and performing,” said Mr. Grossman.
These qualities shine through in Caffrey’s extracurricular activities as well. “She is always really thoughtful in working with others. In the Musical Theater Club she puts a lot of effort into making sure everyone has the solo they want and that people have group numbers,” said Medina.
Not only does she enjoy theater as a way to express herself, but also for the connections she has found through the program.
“[Theater] is a really nice space to meet new people and connect with them. Being in a cast, you really rely on each other to put on the whole show, and you rely on the crew too,” said Caffrey. “My friends have given me a lot more confidence in going on stage and auditioning, and having a friend to talk to while you’re in rehearsal is so great, especially when things are stressful and you need to debrief.”
Through her friends, Caffrey finds inspiration for her continued pursuit of theater.
“Since Eurydice when I met [Medina] when she was a freshman, we’ve been pretty close, and having someone in the cast you are so close with, and who I really respect and admire as an actor, is really nice. I learn a lot from just watching her perform,” said Caffrey.
She is a really big, expansive character with a strong personality and presence,
and that was really fun to play,” said Caffrey. (Photo by Declan Kashou)
Caffrey’s family has also been a huge help for her passion in theater. “My family is very STEM and sports orientated, so I’m a little bit of an oddball. My parents have never quite understood everything, but they are really supportive,” said Caffrey.
Outside of theater, Caffrey is involved in the high school’s Mock Trial team. In this year’s case, Caffrey played the defendant—the mother of a recent high school senior who held a graduation party. She is being sued for negligence because the alcohol she provided at the party made its way into the hands of minors, and may have caused a car accident, which resulted in damages.
“Acting teaches you a lot about staying in character and being able to portray a witness whose objective is to be sympathetic to or believable,” said Caffrey. “For the direct, a big skill is memorization, and then for cross examination, improv obviously plays a huge role, where I am able to think about ‘What would my character say in this situation?’”
Medina said: “She really brought the character to life, and worked on a lot of subtleties to help strengthen the [defense’s] case.”
For Caffrey, theater has also had applications in school. “Reading scripts and analyzing them from an actor’s perspective of ‘How would I read this line? What tactics am I using here? What’s my motivation? When would I pause here?’ helps in English classes to understand the play more intimately than just reading it like a book,” said Caffrey.
Along with a double major or minor in theater, Caffrey plans to major in German and continue learning other languages.
“It’s really nice to communicate with more people than you already can. Also, [learning more languages] helps you appreciate on a deeper level the culture, society, history, and literature of other countries,” said Caffrey.
Caffrey will leave a lasting impact on the theater department at the high school.
“The theater department as a whole will definitely miss her — I know I’ll miss her,” said Medina. “Just how much she contributes to the overall environment and how much she is dedicated to the art and craft of acting and dramaturg.”
Article written by WHS Bradford Editor-in-Chief Alexis Lee ’25 and Staff Writer Louisa Goldberg ’26
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