Local drama teacher retiring after 10 years of successful shows

SHELLEY — Shelley High School is losing one of its longtime teachers.

For the past decade, Camille Gold has been teaching theater at Shelley High School. She has directed 20 plays during that time and helped a once-dwindling theater grow exponentially.

Now she is retiring and says leaving feels bittersweet.

“On the one hand, it kind of breaks my heart to think of leaving this,” she said. “I’m really going to miss the association with the kids because I learn so much. They’ve really changed me. If I’ve done anything to help them, they’ve changed me tenfold.”

Gold started the program in 2008. She said by the time the former theater teacher retired, the drama program had lost popularity and was lagging in participation.

“It just kind of broke my heart a little bit because when I had gone to Shelley High School, drama had been a huge part of my life,” Gold said. “So I talked to my husband and family and decided this might be something I’d like to do.”

Before taking over the drama program at the school, she had directed a few community theater plays. When she saw the need for a new theater director at the school she wrote to the principal and was soon hired.

She jumped right into her role as the new theater director and began putting together her first show, a melodrama called “Dogsbreath Devereaux, The Dastardly Doctor.”

“That first play — boy — it was such a great experience, for a lot of reasons,” she said. “No. 1, it was so fun to work with high school students — youth, they feel like they can do anything. So, you’re like, ‘So let’s try this,’ and they will. So there was just so much energy and life.”

Since that first show, Gold said her shows have consistently generated more interest with students and the community with a multitude of sold-out shows and a consistently full cast. It’s those cast members Gold has impacted the most.

Emily Jensen, a junior at Shelley High School, got into the theater program one year ago.

“It was really scary at first because everyone I came into doing it with were all really experienced and really talented,” Emily said. “I thought, ‘How could I ever be as good as these people?’, but Mrs. Gold and everybody just really took me in and invited me to be part of it.”

Christian Haroldsen, a senior at SHS, said he has been in theater since he was a freshman.

“It’s been a party,” he said. “The people are fantastic. It’s like getting to work with awesome people every day and the shows are just fantastic as well because Camille’s a fantastic director.”

Her final show, “The Drowsy Chaperone,” ends Tuesday night in the Shelley High School Little Theater.

Editor’s note: Camille Gold is related to the author of this article.