“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” laments King Henry IV in his famous soliloquy from the play that shares his name. Paralyzed with exhaustion, he watches wearily over his sleeping nation. Last weekend, the king delivered his speech vertically from an infirmary bed, immobilized by an explosion. A comrade comes up to him, gently reminding the sick actor it is time to go on and asking if he remembers his lines. On the pillow next to his head sits a crown fashioned out of barbed wire instead of gold, and an ensemble of war-wounded actors around him wears dirty uniforms as if they were courtly silk. The king performs the scene to its end, and the show continues as he lies on the edge of the stage, punctuating prose with shallow coughs for the rest of the night.

As the lights dim in the Glicker-Milstein Theatre and the Four Seasons’ “Sherry” begins to play, the audience is engulfed by infectious pop at odds with the somber tone in the room. Two figures enter from either side of the stage at a diagonal, walking slowly toward each other over suburban carpets laying the groundwork for a Midwestern home. Trance-like, they begin a rhythmic fight in time to the music, bodies jerking apart and together, until a gunshot cathartically rings out across the theater, and they crumple to the ground.

This year, Joel Meyers, CC ’21, got a second acceptance letter. Only this time, instead of bringing him to Columbia, the letter welcomed him to Hogwarts.