From Off-Broadway stages to the Westford Academy Center for the Performing Arts, artistic director Michael Towers has led every theater kid’s dream. However, even on the big stages, Towers’ true passion lies within the four walls of WA. His presence here has not only changed the school physically, but has impacted hundreds of students’ lives and has created a lasting legacy.

Growing up in Forestville, Maryland, the biggest thing in Towers’ K-8 school was theater. It was an infectious magic that all students were excited to be a part of, including Towers. So, when he moved to Westford in 1984 to start high school, he was shocked to find the miniscule impact theater arts had on the community.

During his time as a student at WA, Towers put theater in the rearview mirror, perhaps never to be visited again. Nevertheless, after graduating from WA and soon transferring to Boston College (BC), theater ultimately found its way back into his life; another WA alum informed Towers about an audition for the musical “Pippin”, one in which he took part in.

Graduating from BC with a degree in Philosophy and Theater Arts, Towers knew that he would move to New York City to pursue a career in acting. After coming back to Westford to coach freshman soccer, Towers eventually moved to NYC in 1993 to pursue his dream.

“[In NYC] I was a vocalist and had some Off-Off-Broadway and soap opera work,” Towers said. “I had a friend in California [that said], ‘If you’re going to be in soaps, then you need to come to California.’ So, I was convinced that that was going to be my path, daytime television.”

Before moving out to California, Towers came back to Westford. While in town, the WA principal at the time, Joe Lisi, told Towers that he was going to come work for him.

“Lisi said, ‘It is your destiny to come to WA and open a theater department.’ I’ve told the story 1,000 times and that’s literally the language he used,” Towers said. “He didn’t say come and be the drama club advisor, he didn’t say come and coach soccer or whatever. He said, ‘You’re going to come and open a theater department. It’s your destiny.'”

Still not fully convinced that working at WA was his destiny, Towers kept his job at The Outlook and continued to commute back and forth to NYC whenever he booked a gig. However, after meeting a woman and eventually having a child, Towers’ life drastically changed, and that is when he decided to check back in with Lisi about his so-called destiny.

According to Towers, Lisi created job positions for him such as special education tutor and study hall monitor, until eventually Towers finished his certification to teach English and became an English teacher in 1997. Soon after that, Lisi showed Towers a blueprint for a performing arts wing of the school, affectionately referred to by Towers as the Death Star.

Not long after that did the theater department start to soar; class after class was introduced, from acting to directing, and theater education increased immensely at WA.

Even before the theater wing could be built, plays were performed all over the building–every inch of the building was used for production.

“I was carving out these little niches as we waited for this building to open […] and I was just convincing people that we could make theater anywhere,” Towers said.

As the PAC wing was finished in the early 2000s, Towers began exclusively teaching theater electives and leaving his English teachings behind.

According to Towers, he has always been an advocate for selecting plays that would provoke a meaningful conversation, which, he believes, creates great theater. This intrigued many students and soon grew the department to have as many as 300 students.

Through the black box theater and the newly built PAC, Towers had even more opportunities to involve as many students in theater as possible. With eight to ten productions happening a year, possibilities for students were endless.

To continue involving as many students as possible, Towers started the Summer School for the Performing Arts (SSPA) in 2006, a summer camp where students grades three through eleven could be immersed in theater and learn from their peers, creating a welcoming community that extends through WA.

“I don’t have a student for one year, I have a student for 10 years,” Towers said. “So that [has] obviously enabled me to do the kind of work that we [do] because we have hardworking, determined, smart, passionate, creative people who know [they are] by the time they come [to WA].”

According to Trinity Murphy, a current WA senior and someone who has known Towers for over 10 years due to SSPA, Towers doesn’t only teach to the curriculum but prepares his students for the world beyond WA.

“Towers does not like when people raise their hands,” Murphy said. “He likes people to be outspoken and opinionated, but to learn the wrong and right times to speak and the social cues that present us with the opportunities to open the floor to discuss, which I think is really important in today’s society.”

Although Towers has created a physical impact within the space he built, he also has impacted students’ lives and the path that they decide to pursue in the future through the way he holds both his classes and productions. Not only does Towers influence each of his students, he also creates lasting bonds which bring people, such as Associate Director Maggie Sulka, back to WA after having been taught by Towers.

“He teaches professional theater and he teaches you how to be a good human and he challenges his students,” Sulka said. “He provides them with opportunities for them to learn and grow, [and] he is definitely the foundation of why I’m a theater educator.”

According to Towers, although he has made lots of sacrifices in order to be where he is today, he has been rewarded tenfold with how rich the community he has built is.

“Everything that has brought me joy here has been the relationships that I’ve built [with] students, staff, the building,” Towers said. “I’ve lived here for 33 years and my cup was always full. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices in my life [but] they didn’t feel like sacrifices at the time because I was richly rewarded with relationships and trust, things that matter and things that are real.”

While WA Theater Arts will never be the same without Towers, everybody who has been moved by his presence will remember him as a teacher who always sees the potential in every student that comes into his room, and as someone who constantly challenges his students.

“Towers is one of the best educators that I know. He’s one of the best humans that I know. He’s funny, he’s insightful, [and] he sees students for who they are, but he has the innate ability to see their potential, even when they might not see it,” Sulka said. “He’s [also] such a fearless risk taker when it comes to choosing material that’s going to challenge students. He raises the bar for everybody that comes and sees the work that he produces, but he raises the bar for the students who are participating, and then he raises the bar for the audience.”

Although Towers’ biggest endeavour at WA has been his creation of the theater department, he has also spent the past four years as an adviser for the Class of 2026. The way in which Towers has conducted himself over the years while he was at WA was always led by creating meaningful and lasting relationships, and is now leaving in a fitting way by finishing his career at the same time as the now graduating class that he has advised over the past four years.

“I wanted to leave in the same way that I began and conducted my life here, building in-depth and meaningful relationships with as many people as possible,” Towers said. “I proposed my idea to my beloved friend Ms. Jozokos who had conceived a similarly romantic notion: to serve as the advisor to the class that her daughter Jynjer would graduate with. Needless to say, the dream has come true.”

As Towers gets ready to embark on the next chapter of his life, whether that be spending time with family or continuing

to write original works, Towers will always look back on his time at WA fondly. While he may not physically be in the building any longer, his heart will always lie within the four walls of WA.

“I’m not good at endings, I don’t like endings. I don’t want there to be some definitive line in the sand drawn where I am no longer connected to Westford Academy,” Towers said. “I live a mile away, I’m not going anywhere, [but] it’s time for me to shift all of this time and energy that I have focused here.”