The Credo Class Of 2022
The students in the Credo classroom have been handpicked by their teachers for both their distinctiveness and diversity. Artists and musicians, athletes and coders, writers and playwrights, future leaders and future outcasts.
And their social media posts reflect their passion and creativity, whether it’s a simple post of a quote on Twitter, a soliloquy on Tik Tok, a complex original music video on YouTube, or a brilliantly framed Instagram Story that perfectly summarizes their feelings.
In different mediums, with differing degrees of openness, every character takes on the hardest task of their lives: figuring out who they are.
Sander Baldwin
("The Clown")
Sander Baldwin is a tortured soul, brilliantly funny on the exterior, and yet so wrought with anxiety that he’s ready to snap.
He makes funny videos on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram Stories, and curates a funny Twitter feed in hopes that he’ll one day get noticed by his hero, Bo Burnham.
His parents are teachers and his sister is at Harvard, so he’s seen as the exception in the family. He’s still smart, but, you know, just chooses to express it differently.
He becomes best friends with the girl he loves, Grace. Everything he does is for her, to impress her, and win her love. It's all for naught, as she doesn’t like him like that and doesn’t want to ruin the friendship.
Grace Tan
("The Dream Girl")
Grace Tan is pretty perfect. She’s beautiful, smart, athletic, funny, and even has the “cool parents.” But she also holds her personal life pretty close to the vest, not allowing anyone too close.
It’s one of the reasons she keeps her social media posts to pretty pictures on Instagram. (“Nobody wants to hear what Kendall Jenner thinks about kids in cages.”) She hates conflict, so she does everything she can to just project to the world the one thing she thinks people like about her: her looks.
Despite that, there is one person with whom she has a close relationship: Sander Baldwin. He is her best friend, and while she knows that he is not-so-secretly in love with her, she treasures his friendship so much that she doesn’t want to get serious with him for fear of losing the one person she feels has a fairly complete picture of her.
ErIn Dowling
("The Artiste")
Erin Dowling will be a star. It is just a matter of when.
Beautiful, smart, and a talented actress and dancer, she is simply biding her time until she's cast in a Broadway show, wins a reality show, or whatever else will instantly start her rise to fame.
She would be conceited if she weren’t actually such a talented person. And while her brashness can sometimes come off as being a bitch, she respects the talents of the friends she has at the moment.
She finds an incredibly talented boyfriend who composes the music she does her TikTok dances to. And another friend to write YouTube dramas for her to perform
But, for her, everyone is solely just here to help her become a star.
Joffrey Leonard
("The Musician")
Joffrey Leonard is a true introvert, a mad genius who spends his time behind keyboards and soundboards and instruments creating collages of sound to match his feelings.
But what are those feelings?
Well, every kind imaginable. He is part lover, part tortured artist, part eternal optimist, part near suicidal fatalist.
Depending on the day and mood, the resulting compositions range from dancehall pop to acoustic folk to sparse soundscape. He sees his music as a mirror of his mind, an invitation to sit back and experience his life through his music. He is an open book that writes in musical notes.
Rhys Jaques
("The Rebel")
That guy who stares at you like you’re an idiot?
The guy who shakes his head and laughs to himself whenever you say anything?
The one you hate but secretly want to impress?
Meet Rhys Jaques.
An intellectual, a punk, an artist, a photographer, but mostly an asshole, Rhys prides himself on being genuine, calling anyone out on their bullshit, and retreating back to his art and music when everyone else scorns him.
Somewhere deep inside, he is looking to connect with someone, and the personal digging that the Credo class involves might just unearth a friend, or something more.
David Davis
("The Jock")
The youngest of 4 brothers, David Davis is a dude’s dude. And while he may seem like a dumb jock who can’t take anything seriously, he’s got a mind under that helmet. He just opts to use it sparingly.
A star wrestler and football player, he sees sports as his only real chance to get into a good school. He and his three brothers were raised by his father, who played football at Cabot Lodge and Harvard, as did his brothers. The Davis legacy is one to be reckoned with.
And yet, he doesn’t show that he feels any pressure. He thinks everything is awesome, and he’s baffled by the trials and tribulations that everyone around him seems to be going through.
Seriously, it’s just high school! Have fun, drink, make out with chicks, and be crazy. It’s not that hard.
Timothy Bunch
("The Poor Kid")
"Timmy Goodwill." “Free Lunch Bunch.” These are just a few of the nicknames Timothy Bunch has heard in his first week.
While he says none of that has ever gotten to him, it does. But he just wants some of the usual things other teenagers have: Friends. Fun. And, not to be greedy, but love, or at least sex. And he has none of that.
Sure, his dad is MIA. He’s at Cabot Lodge on scholarship. And his phone screen is held together by duct tape. And sure, he might not really know yet if he likes boys or girls. But that shouldn’t make him a total outcast.
And while in real life he’s quiet and composed, online he vents all his frustrations through his Twitch channel that nobody streams, his TikTok videos that nobody ever watches and an online Tumblr comic that nobody ever reads. Or so he thought.
Holly ShERMAN
("The LONER")
Holly is brilliant. Funny. An amazing writer. A gifted harpist. And the best friend you could ever want. Unfortunately, no one knows that because no one speaks to her.
The drama that's missing in her life is directed into the plays she writes and performs on Instagram, using her her old Barbies and her brother's action figures. All the loneliness she feels is laid bare on her Tumblr blog, "Besties With My Mom." And all the craziness she feels is released on her TikTok channel “47 Strings Attached”, where she plays hip hop classics on her harp.
She signed up for Credo with the hope that she'd be able to make meaningful connections and show people the real her. But after these years of loneliness, is she actually someone people want to be friends with?
Harmoni Ginsberg
("The FREAK")
At Cabot Lodge, Harmoni Ginsberg is a women among girls.
She’s embraced the sexuality that others have tried to shame her with, and paired it with her tech knowledge to form a better understanding of the power of femininity.
She’s a big-hearted person who loves people, men and women, although most of her female classmates find her a too loving for their standards.
The power that being sexual gives her, not only over guys, but over the society that finds female sexuality so taboo, keeps her talking about it.
But when she actually has to face up to true feelings for someone, she finds that, rather than empowering her, her reputation makes life more complicated instead.
Melange Lipton
("The Conscience")
The daughter of an actress mother and a civil rights lawyer father, Melange Lipton has been raised to be an activist, working to advance the causes important to her (feminism, cultural appropriation, BLM, among others.) In fact, she’s gotten fairly famous for it, having started her own book club when she was 12 that gave away books by black authors to neighborhood kids.
Despite Buzzfeed labeling her “Angela Davis Jr.” she feels like she’s pretty approachable and fair-minded, knowing she has to be well-versed in the causes she champions. On the other hand, if you’re ignorant and loud, watch out.
Truth is, she kind of just wants to be a kid. While publicly speaking to power to an attentive audience, she also wants friendships and crushes and heartbreak and love. You know, high school stuff.
