Culver junior picked for 5-week summer program at Northwestern University

Chloe Raymundo ’25 will be studying acting on camera this summer after being selected to take part in Northwestern University's prestigious National High School Institute.

Raymundo will attend the five-week program held June 30-Aug. 3 on the campus in Evanston, Illinois, where students in the summer program are affectionately known as “Cherubs.” She will be in the acting on camera course tailored to students interested in learning about performing on screen. Students will learn to analyze character, make strong performance choices and basic production techniques.

Adam Joyce, Culver’s director of theatre, said he recommended Raymundo for the program because she is a talented actor who has a strong work ethic.

“Chloe is a step above. If you talk to Chloe for five minutes you can see very quickly that she is a deep-thinking artist who is operating already on a college level,” he said. “You can trust her with very large roles.”

Raymundo played the character Kaliope in “She Kills Monsters” during her sophomore year at Culver and was the narrator Wayna Rivers-Jones in “Puffs” this past fall. She also has appeared in films in the past two filmfests at Culver, including doing monologues from “Antigone” and “Hamlet.”

“I think acting is really, really fun in a lot of different ways. I think it’s a way to explore different aspects of yourself as well as try on being someone else for a short spell,” she said.

She said everyone has a strong imagination when they are young, but eventually puts down their toys and moves forward.

“Acting is a way to keep on playing, keep an imaginative point of view,” she said.

Terell Cooley ’24, Joyney Lu ’24, and Sidney Underwood ’24 took part in the program at Northwestern last summer and encouraged Raymundo to apply.

“They told me how fun it would be and about the relationships they formed there,” she said.

Joyce, who is a former faculty member at Northwestern and administrative director of the National High School Institute, also strongly encouraged Raymundo to apply because he believes it is the preeminent program for high school students, drawing students from around the world.

“One of the remarkable things about Cherubs is you have 100-plus students who are working on so many different projects at any given time. So they have to rise to the occasion, and they have to have the self-motivated work ethic to excel in a program like that because it’s for gifted high school students and they’re challenged on a college level,” he said.

Raymundo said she was particularly interested in the Northwestern program because that’s where she wants to go to college. She is undecided about a major but is considering studying international science or political science. But she also hopes to be active in Northwestern’s theatre program.

“So if I don’t pursue it as a career, at the very least I’ll be pursuing it as hobby,” she said.

She said being involved in theatre helps her with public speaking. She is also a member of Culver’s speech team. She said her work in theatre also has given her confidence in other aspects of her life.

She said when she first arrived at Culver she thought about giving up theatre because of her busy schedule but credits Joyce with encouraging her to stick with it.

“He is the most passionate but also the most understanding teacher that I have ever had,” she said. “He was the introduction into the theatre world for me.”