The North Star Players are theatre students of North High School, past and present. These students have provided the local community of Oildale and greater Bakersfield with performing arts culture since 1953.
Celebrate their achievement with us through the photographs, articles, video clips, and stories collected here.
Mr. Orr in the house during the 2019 Star Players production of Emlyn William's Night Must Fall.
A message from Mr. Orr
In 1953, North High began its mission to educate high schoolers in their preparations for life's work. At that time, the community of Oildale, north of the Kern River in Bakersfield, was largely made up of families directly related to the Dust Bowl immigrants of the 1930's. Where higher education had been merely a dream, North High became a conduit of hope for a generation.
In 1990, I uprooted my San Diego family to begin a teaching position at North High School in Bakersfield, California. My assignment was part English instruction, part Drama, and a responsibility to direct school play productions. This is how I was introduced to the fine theater tradition at NHS.
No other kind of education is as full of dreams as is the arts. The essence of theater is a healthy portrayal of the dreams of others, whether characters, writers, directors, or other stagecraft personnel who create new worlds for the stage. In the theater is where the poor can be rich, the dullard can be wise, the important can be the clown.
Countless audiences in the community have enjoyed the theater art of the students at North High, before me, with me, and I know they will well after me. Please enjoy the history told here, no greater than those of others but in the eyes of those who lived it.