It's a Wednesday morning, and Holden Caulfield is railing against prep school phonies in the library. Detectives and spies mull over the clues in their latest cases. An Afghani ponders how to continue enduring the unendurable in a country rocked by war and want. And over in the gym, a green- faced witch agonizes over feeling misunderstood. The performers are confident, the insights are pithy, and the voices are unique. This is a book report? And are these really just eighth-graders?

In this annual RDS tradition of the Automated Wax Museum, each eighth-grade student chooses a "stretch" book outside their usual favorite genres or comfort level. Each student then picks a character with whom he or she identifies, reading text closely to examine motivations, discern temperaments, and develop a deeper sense of empathy. Writing a monologue in his or her character's voice (learning along the way, the difference between monologue and soliliquoy), students often have to cross the arbitrary boundaries of race, age, gender, and geography. Their dramatic pieces aren't merely rehashes of existing scenes, but insightful syntheses of character as an entirety. Students draft and rewrite multiple times, add costumes and props, memorize, memorize, memorize, develop mannerisms and sometimes even accents as they step out of themselves and into the shoes of another, taking characters from printed page to three dimensionality and true human emotion.

Students stand like wax mannequins, poised to perform, until they are approached and 'brought to life' by following instructions on a card: "Pass me my crystal," "Press my binoculars," "Pick up the phone." Then they deliver their monologues, and when finished, revert to their statue poses once more. Viewers cluster close around them during the presentations  --  no safe anonymity of the far-removed stage here! -- and the performers stay in character the whole time.

"One of my aims in the curriculum is to push students to dig for meaning in what they're reading," explains seventh- and eighth-grade English teacher Lisa Horner. "Sometimes we even joke that I may push too hard (yes, I know there's a Facebook group called 'My English teacher finds more deep meaning in a book than the author intended'...)!  But the beauty of the Automated Wax Museum project is that students truly take on that quest for meaning themselves. They deeply and personally examine beyond the plot line and delve into the question of character. On a developmental level, that's one of the key tasks of early adolescence -- examining character and identity, both of oneself and of one's peers -- and it makes this a really fitting signature exercise for the Middle School curriculum."