Waukegan High School will present a detective-style adaptation of Edgar Allan Poeâs “The Fall of the House of Usher” on April 23, 24, and 25 at Trapp Auditorium, according to an announcement on April 20. The play is set in the 1930s and combines elements from Poeâs era with a mystery plot centered around a family curse.
The event offers students and community members an opportunity to experience live theater while engaging with classic literature in a new way. Performances begin at 7:00 p.m., with tickets priced at $8 for students and seniors and $10 for adults. Tickets are available both at school bookstores and online.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 serves Lake County through schools including Waukegan High School as well as numerous elementary and middle schools according to its report card. The district enrolled over 15,000 students during the 2019-2020 school year across grades pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade according to official data.
Demographically, the district is composed of approximately 3.2 percent White, 13.2 percent Black, 79.5 percent Hispanic, and 1.3 percent Asian students according to state records. The teaching staff includes more than one thousand teachers who earn an average salary of $63,524 before pension contributions; women make up about seventy-one percent of this workforce as reported by ISBE.
District spending reached $23,429 per student in the year 2020 for a total expenditure exceeding $359 million based on state data. Chronic truancy remains a concern in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60: during the same period there were over three thousand chronically truant studentsâabout twenty-one percentâcompared with a statewide average just under ten percent according to ISBE statistics.
The upcoming production aims not only to entertain but also strengthen connections within this diverse school community.
