In the 1960s and early 1970s 'straight' drama flourished.  In 1964 a drama group operating as a school club was formed.  The group celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birth by performing extracts from several of his plays.  The special effects of dry ice in Macbeth's witches scene was one of the highlights of the evening.

Expression Nights which began in 1967 provided opportunities for English classes to perform.  By 1969 twenty-five plays were presented.  In 1971 three plays were staged, Look Back in Anger, Half a Sixpence and Romeo and Juliet.  In 1973 ten percent of the school population, as well as North Ryde Girls, was involved in a production by the modern German playwright, Brecht.  In 1980, Mr Robert Phillips from the English staff combined with Mrs Lopez to stage a lavish production of Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer.