Marvelous Aderibigbe Writes & Stages One-Act Play
Students seeking opportunities to express themselves culturally and creatively will find no better school than Millbrook. There are endless opportunities here for expression, and we’re always looking to add more—like this year’s DEIB passion projects, which include a student-curated art show for Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month and, most recently, Marvelous Aderibigbe ’26’s one-act play, The Salon.
Marvelous poured her soul into writing, casting, and staging her project, and the Millbrook Theater Department supported her by hiring Najah Muhammed—who led an acting class on campus last year—to direct the production. The play is centered on a friend group in the early 2000s struggling to process change. Their group bond is tested by the addition of a new member and the pending loss of another.
Set mostly in a salon, the play explores various relevant themes, including mental health and self-advocacy. As the story unfolds, the audience is carried along on a wave of emotions while the group of friends reaches a breaking point but ultimately comes together.
The cast of Angelina Edwards ’26, Andrea Taitt ’27, Chanya Johnson ’26, Anna Alphonso ’27, and Josiah Guiles ’26 worked with Marvelous and Ms. Muhammed to make the colorful set, design the lighting, and create a truly engaging production. “What I really loved about this process is that it was super collaborative,” Ms. Muhammed noted in a Q&A after the show. “This cast was really able to get their creative juices flowing.”
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The cast of Angelina Edwards ’26, Andrea Taitt ’27, Chanya Johnson ’26, Anna Alphonso ’27, and Josiah Guiles ’26 worked with Marvelous and Ms. Muhammed to make the colorful set, design the lighting, and create a truly engaging production. “What I really loved about this process is that it was super collaborative,” Ms. Muhammed noted in a Q&A after the show. “This cast was really able to get their creative juices flowing.”
Marvelous explained that she set her play in a salon because she realized that it’s a place of community and collaboration—a lot like Millbrook. She also praised her cast for diving into the content and making it their own. “My highlight was definitely watching this thing come together,” she said. “There are a lot of lines that were improvised, and I feel like they actually made the play better, because it genuinely feels more human.”
A fixture in the Theater Department in her time here, Marvelous will be missed when she goes off to college in the fall. Opportunities like this that Marvelous and so many other students take advantage of are why Millbrook is one of the top boarding schools in the U.S. Learn more about our creative programming below:
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