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St. Andrew’s School, Middletown, Delaware · 14 November 1988 to 15 January 1989

Dead Poets Society

Robin Williams in a dark velvet jacket and white scarf, smiling, 1990
Robin Williams at the 62nd Academy Awards, 26 March 1990, the night of his Best Actor nomination for the film. Photo by Alan Light. Alan Light · CC BY 2.0
Robin WilliamsKeating · March 1990
Peter Weir in a straw hat, hands raised, directing
Peter Weir directing Witness in Pennsylvania, 29 June 1984, four years before he came to Delaware. Intelligencer Journal photograph. Dan Marschka, Intelligencer Journal · Public domain
Peter WeirDirector · 1984

Three boys in step. Your own walk

The courtyard · Welton Academy, played by St. Andrew’s

Your own walk.

Keating sends his boys out to walk the courtyard, and then asks each of them to find a walk of his own. Here are three of them, marching in step.

Where we read it
First boy
Second boy
Third boy

Three boys, one step. Give each his own walk.

A stone cloister arcade with pointed arches throwing long shadows on the flagstones
The cloister at St. Andrew's School in 2006. Sstuart89 at English Wikipedia · Public domain

350 Noxontown Road, Middletown, Delaware

St. Andrew’s School

More than seventy private schools and universities were scouted before St. Andrew’s was chosen to play Welton Academy.

Shooting was fitted round the school year, mainly over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, so that classes were not disrupted.

The film was shot almost entirely on the school grounds. N. C. Wyeth’s mural in the dining hall appears in the opening credits.

The school was founded in 1929 and stands on 2,200 acres. Its rowing course on Noxontown Pond runs 1,500 metres, in six lanes.

Today it is a coeducational, all-boarding school; Welton in the film is a school for boys.

A working boarding school and its students’ home, with no public visiting. Call the school on 302-378-9511 before you plan anything.

Where we read it
A stone Gothic tower against a blue sky over a red-leaved tree
The bell tower at St. Andrew's School, with autumn leaves, in 2006. Sstuart89 at English Wikipedia · Public domain

The meeting place · Beaver Valley and New Castle

Fifty-six feet.

The boys slip out at night to read in a cave. It is a real Delaware cave, but only for so long. Walk in and see where the rock runs out.

A dark opening under a mossy rock ledge, half hidden by green undergrowth
The mouth of the Beaver Valley cave in May 2011. Photo by Choess. Choess · CC BY-SA 3.0

At the mouth, in Beaver Valley on the Delaware–Pennsylvania line. Walk in.

A low rock ceiling over a floor of loose stone inside a shallow cave
Inside the Beaver Valley rock shelter in July 2024. Photo by Wordplay7. Wordplay7 · CC0

Beaver Valley, on the Delaware–Pennsylvania line

Beaver Valley cave

The cave is the society’s meeting place. Its scenes combine shots at the Beaver Valley rock shelter with sets built indoors.

The film’s cave was modelled on this one, which was then called Wolf Rock Cave.

It is the only formally recognised cave in Delaware, and reaches just 56 feet at its furthest point.

It has also been called Indian Cave and the Beaver Valley Rock Shelter. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 1 September 1978.

Much of Beaver Valley lies in First State National Historical Park. The park’s Brandywine Valley lots are free; lot 2 is on Beaver Valley Road.

Park free at the Brandywine Valley lots of First State National Historical Park (lot 2 is on Beaver Valley Road) and walk in. The cave is on the National Register: leave it as you find it.

Where we read it
A brick colonial courthouse with a white cupola and flanking wings
The New Castle Court House, built in 1732, in September 2019. Photo by Cornflower123. Cornflower123 · CC0

New Castle Court House Museum, 211 Delaware Street, New Castle, Delaware

New Castle

Three sets, the inside of the cave among them, were built in a warehouse in New Castle.

The town counts Dead Poets Society among the films shot there.

The Dutch settled New Castle in 1651, under Peter Stuyvesant.

The Court House, built in 1732, was Delaware’s first court and state capitol. Admission is free; tours leave on the hour.

Start at the Court House Museum: free, Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm, Sunday 1.30 to 4.30pm, with 45-minute guided tours. The Green is beside it.

Where we read it
Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs

New Castle Court House tour

New Castle · Free

Free 45-minute guided tours of the 1732 Court House: Wednesday to Saturday at 10, 11, 1, 2 and 3; Sunday at 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30. Up to 15 people; groups book ahead.

Plan the tour
Peter Weir in a straw hat, hands raised, directing
Peter Weir directing Witness in Pennsylvania, 29 June 1984, four years before he came to Delaware. Intelligencer Journal photograph. Dan Marschka, Intelligencer Journal · Public domain

Delaware · between terms

In story order.

Peter Weir shot most of the film in sequence, so the boys could grow into their parts as the term went on.

  1. 70+Schools and universities scouted
  2. 14 Nov 1988First day of shooting
  3. 15 Jan 1989Last day
  4. 500+Actors auditioned
  5. 1,000+Delaware residents on the film
  6. $16.4mBudget

St. Andrew’s was used mainly over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, so that its own classes were not disrupted. Keating’s classroom was a replica, built on a soundstage in Wilmington. Weir asked the young cast not to use modern slang, even off camera, and Lisa Birnbach, author of The Official Preppy Handbook, held them to the dress codes of 1959.

For the cave, Weir wanted the readings to sound natural; a crew member suggested the boys tell each other scary stories first. He also kept half a day’s filming from Disney’s executives so that Robin Williams could improvise.

Look for N. C. Wyeth’s mural from the St. Andrew’s dining hall in the opening credits.

Where we read it

Middletown · West Main Street

Main Street.

Neil wins the part of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the town’s theatre is the Everett, the 1922 picture house on Middletown’s Main Street.

A small-town main street with the Everett Theatre's marquee among brick and stone shopfronts
West Main Street, Middletown, in March 2010, with the Everett Theatre and its old marquee at centre left. Photo by Acroterion. Acroterion · CC BY-SA 4.0

47 West Main Street, Middletown, Delaware

The Everett Theatre

The Everett and its neon marquee appear in the scene where A Midsummer Night’s Dream is staged.

It opened on 9 November 1922 with the silent film Under Two Flags, on the site of two earlier opera houses lost to fire in 1918 and 1922. It is named after its builder, John Everett Lewis.

It closed in 1979. A community group, now The Everett, Inc., formed in 1981 and completed the purchase in 1983.

The 92-year-old marquee, rusted beyond repair, came down on 17 January 2014. A new sign made to match it went up for the film’s 25th anniversary.

A working community theatre with plays, films and classes. Check the programme and book on the Everett’s website.

Where we read it
A red Victorian corner building with mansard roofs and two small towers
1 East Main Street, at Middletown’s central crossroads, in September 2013. Photo by Smallbones. Smallbones · CC BY-SA 3.0

Main Street at Broad Street, Middletown, Delaware

Main Street, Middletown

Filming took about ten weeks in and around Middletown. More than 1,000 Delaware residents worked on the film as actors, extras, scouts and crew.

The mayor remembered Williams taking a bagged lunch on walks through town and stopping to talk to people.

Shopfronts in Delaware towns were dressed for 1959, with modern fittings taken away.

Middletown’s old crossroads, a short walk east of the Everett along Main Street.

Where we read it

The Everett · April 2014

Row G.

In April 2014 Middletown marked twenty-five years since the film with a gala at the Everett. Robin Williams was invited, but he was filming in England that weekend. The organisers kept seat 104 in row G free for him, the seat he sat in during a scene in the film, and he signed posters for the theatre’s auction.

That August, after he died, people in Middletown left flowers outside the Everett, and fans everywhere recreated the film’s O Captain! My Captain! scene in tribute.

Where we read it
Where we read it

Camden · Concord

The dead poets.

The society reads poets who were long dead. Two of them left places you can still visit: Whitman’s last house, across the Delaware in Camden, and Thoreau’s pond and grave in Concord.

  1. Walt Whitman1819–1892

    A narrow grey clapboard house between two brick houses on a city street
    The Walt Whitman House, the grey house at centre, on Mickle Street, Camden, in October 2007. Midnightdreary · Public domain

    330 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey

    Walt Whitman House

    Keating brings Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! to his first class, and the boys use its words for him at the end.

    Whitman wrote it in 1865 on the death of Abraham Lincoln. It first appeared in The Saturday Press on 4 November 1865.

    Whitman bought this house in the spring of 1884, the first home he ever owned, and died here on 26 March 1892. The six-room house keeps the bed he died in.

    Guided tours only: Wednesday to Saturday 10am to noon and 1 to 4pm, Sunday 1 to 4pm. Free. Call 856-964-5383 to confirm before you go.

    Where we read it

  2. Henry David Thoreau1817–1862

    Tall trees in autumn colour along the shore of a still pond
    Walden Pond in October 2009. Photo by John Phelan. John Phelan · CC BY 3.0

    Walden Pond State Reservation, Concord, Massachusetts

    Walden Pond

    The film uses an excerpt from Walden as a motif running through the plot.

    Thoreau lived for two years in a cabin on the shore; Walden came out in 1854. The 335-acre reservation became a National Historic Landmark in 1962.

    The book holds Thoreau’s line about a man who does not keep pace with his companions because he hears a different drummer.

    Open 7am to 7pm; the visitor centre 10am to 4pm. Parking is $8 for Massachusetts plates and $30 for others, by card, and the lot closes when it is full.

    Where we read it

  3. Henry David ThoreauHis grave

    A small stone marked HENRY among tree roots, surrounded by pens and pencils
    Thoreau’s headstone, marked simply HENRY, with pens and pencils left by visitors, in July 2015. Photo by Upstateherd. Upstateherd · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Bedford Street, Concord, Massachusetts

    Author’s Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

    Henry David Thoreau is buried here with his family, on the hill called Author’s Ridge.

    The cemetery was dedicated on 29 September 1855 with a speech by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is buried here too.

    Near the centre of Concord. A working cemetery: walk up to the ridge quietly.

    Where we read it

Thoreau’s headstone reads HENRY. In the 2015 photograph, visitors have left pens and pencils on it.

Walt Whitman House

Walt Whitman House tour

Camden · Free

Guided tours only, Wednesday to Saturday and on Sunday afternoons, in the house where Whitman died. Free; call 856-964-5383 to confirm times.

See the times
Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

Walden and Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s book, which runs through the film as a motif, in Penguin Classics.

Find the book

Nashville · Westover Hills · Los Angeles

Before and after.

The story began with a teacher in Tennessee and ended, for its writer, with an Oscar.

  1. 1985
    A three-storey brick school building with a white colonnade, under bare trees
    The Carter Building at Montgomery Bell Academy, Nashville, in 2007. Wikimachine (talk) (Uploads) · Public domain

    Harding Road, Nashville, Tennessee

    Montgomery Bell Academy

    Tom Schulman, class of 1968, wrote the screenplay. Its fictional school is patterned after Montgomery Bell Academy.

    Keating is based on Sam Pickering, one of Schulman’s teachers here.

    Schulman wrote the script in 1985.

    MBA is a day school for boys in grades 7 to 12. It was founded in 1867.

    A working school. See it from the road.

    Where we read it
  2. 1988
    A suburban highway with route signs for 141 and 100 under a summer sky
    Centre Road at Lancaster Pike, on the edge of Westover Hills, in July 2022. The house itself is private and not shown. Photo by Famartin. Famartin · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Westover Hills, west of Wilmington, Delaware

    A house in Westover Hills

    AFI lists a mansion in Westover Hills among the film’s locations.

    Westover Hills is an unincorporated community west of Wilmington, between Delaware Routes 48 and 52.

    A private home. It is not named or pinned here; please leave the people who live there in peace.

    Where we read it
  3. 1990
    A wide modernist theatre with tall columns under a flared roof
    The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in July 2022. Photo by Benoît Prieur. Benoît Prieur · CC0

    135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles

    Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

    The 62nd Academy Awards were held here on 26 March 1990. Tom Schulman won Best Original Screenplay; the film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

    Of the five Best Picture nominees it had earned the most at the US box office: $95.8 million.

    Home of Los Angeles Opera, at the Music Center on Grand Avenue. Go to a performance.

    Where we read it

The people

Who made it.

  • Robin Williams in a dark velvet jacket and white scarf, smiling, 1990
    Robin Williams at the 62nd Academy Awards, 26 March 1990, the night of his Best Actor nomination for the film. Photo by Alan Light. Alan Light · CC BY 2.0
    Robin WilliamsJohn Keating · March 1990
  • Robin Williams signing a programme for a man in a dinner jacket, a girl beside them
    Robin Williams signing a programme at the 62nd Academy Awards, 26 March 1990. Photo by Alan Light. Alan Light · CC BY 2.0
    Robin WilliamsOscar night · March 1990
  • Peter Weir in a straw hat, hands raised, directing
    Peter Weir directing Witness in Pennsylvania, 29 June 1984, four years before he came to Delaware. Intelligencer Journal photograph. Dan Marschka, Intelligencer Journal · Public domain
    Peter WeirDirector · 1984
  • Ethan Hawke in a dark suit and tie, black and white, 2009
    Ethan Hawke at the Venice Film Festival in 2009, twenty years after the film. No free photograph of him from the late 1980s has turned up. Photo by Nicolas Genin. Nicolas Genin · CC BY-SA 2.0
    Ethan HawkeTodd Anderson · shown 2009
  • Robert Sean Leonard in glasses and a blue tie, smiling, 2007
    Robert Sean Leonard in May 2007, eighteen years after the film. No free photograph of him from the late 1980s has turned up. Photo by Arnold Gatilao. Arnold Gatilao · CC BY 2.0
    Robert Sean LeonardNeil Perry · shown 2007

Robin Williams played John Keating, Ethan Hawke played Todd Anderson and Robert Sean Leonard played Neil Perry. Peter Weir, who had been to a private school himself in the 1950s, directed from Tom Schulman’s script. Williams’s joking on set irritated the young Hawke; Williams told an agent that Hawke would do really well, and the agent signed him. No free photographs of Hawke or Leonard from the late 1980s have turned up, so they are shown in 2009 and 2007.

It opened in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto on 2 June 1989 and went wide a week later. It took about $235.9 million worldwide. At the Oscars Williams was nominated for Best Actor and lost to Daniel Day-Lewis; Schulman won for the screenplay.

Where we read it

Into the cave and out to the poets.

Where it is now

10 places you can visit, most of them in northern Delaware. Two are working schools: see them from outside. The house in Westover Hills is private and is not on the map.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

  • General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working boarding school and its students’ home, with no public visiting. Call the school on 302-378-9511 before you plan anything.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working community theatre with plays, films and classes. Check the programme and book on the Everett’s website.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Middletown’s old crossroads, a short walk east of the Everett along Main Street.

  1. A long Collegiate Gothic school range with a tower, behind a wide green lawn in evening light
    The front lawn of St. Andrew's School, Middletown, in 2023. Photo by Clemens Robinson. Clemens Robinson · CC BY-SA 4.0

    350 Noxontown Road, Middletown, Delaware

    St. Andrew’s School

    More than seventy private schools and universities were scouted before St. Andrew’s was chosen to play Welton Academy.

    A working boarding school and its students’ home, with no public visiting. Call the school on 302-378-9511 before you plan anything.

    Where we read it
  2. A small-town main street with the Everett Theatre's marquee among brick and stone shopfronts
    West Main Street, Middletown, in March 2010, with the Everett Theatre and its old marquee at centre left. Photo by Acroterion. Acroterion · CC BY-SA 4.0

    47 West Main Street, Middletown, Delaware

    The Everett Theatre

    The Everett and its neon marquee appear in the scene where A Midsummer Night’s Dream is staged.

    A working community theatre with plays, films and classes. Check the programme and book on the Everett’s website.

    Where we read it
  3. A red Victorian corner building with mansard roofs and two small towers
    1 East Main Street, at Middletown’s central crossroads, in September 2013. Photo by Smallbones. Smallbones · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Main Street at Broad Street, Middletown, Delaware

    Main Street, Middletown

    Filming took about ten weeks in and around Middletown. More than 1,000 Delaware residents worked on the film as actors, extras, scouts and crew.

    Middletown’s old crossroads, a short walk east of the Everett along Main Street.

    Where we read it

Stay

Wilmington or Concord.

A 1913 hotel in Wilmington for the cave country and New Castle, or a 1716 inn on Concord’s square for Walden.

Hotel du Pont

Hotel du Pont, Wilmington

Wilmington · 217 rooms and suites

Opened on 15 January 1913 at 42 West 11th Street, with 217 rooms and suites and a French brasserie, Le Cavalier. A Historic Hotels of America member, a short drive from New Castle and the Brandywine.

See the hotel
Concord’s Colonial Inn

Concord’s Colonial Inn

Concord · 56 rooms and suites

On Monument Square, Concord; the main inn was built in 1716, and it has a Thoreau Suite. A short drive from Walden Pond and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

See the rooms

Go there

Tours.

A free guided tour of the New Castle Court House, Whitman’s house in Camden, and tours around the Brandywine.

Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs

New Castle Court House tour

New Castle · Free

Free 45-minute guided tours of the 1732 Court House: Wednesday to Saturday at 10, 11, 1, 2 and 3; Sunday at 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30. Up to 15 people; groups book ahead.

Plan the tour
Walt Whitman House

Walt Whitman House tour

Camden · Free

Guided tours only, Wednesday to Saturday and on Sunday afternoons, in the house where Whitman died. Free; call 856-964-5383 to confirm times.

See the times
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Tours in the Brandywine Valley

Brandywine Valley

Live marketplace results for tours around the Brandywine Valley and Wilmington. None is about the film.

Live marketplace results · itineraries change

Compare tours

What’s on

At the Everett.

A play and a film night on the stage where Neil plays Puck.

Checking current event dates…

Take it home

The books.

The novel of the film, Thoreau’s Walden and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

Dead Poets Society

N. H. Kleinbaum

The novel of the film, from Tom Schulman’s screenplay.

Find the book
Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

Walden and Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s book, which runs through the film as a motif, in Penguin Classics.

Find the book
Bookshop.org UK · Ad / affiliate

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

Whitman’s poems, edited and introduced by Malcolm Cowley, in Penguin Classics.

Find the book

Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.

The register

Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.

11 of 11 places · 15 of 15 Moments

  • St. Andrew’s School

    350 Noxontown Road, Middletown, Delaware

    • Seventy schools

      Scouts look at more than seventy schools and universities before choosing St. Andrew’s to play Welton Academy.

    • Between terms

      Shooting begins on 14 November 1988, mostly over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and ends on 15 January 1989.

    • In story order

      Most of the film is shot in story order, so that the boys can grow into their parts as the term goes on.

    • The mural

      N. C. Wyeth’s dining-hall mural appears in the opening credits.

  • The Everett Theatre

    47 West Main Street, Middletown, Delaware

    • Puck

      The Everett and its neon marquee appear in the scene where A Midsummer Night’s Dream is staged.

    • Row G

      At the 25th-anniversary gala, seat 104 in row G is kept free for Robin Williams.

  • Main Street, Middletown

    Main Street at Broad Street, Middletown, Delaware

    • A walk at lunch

      Williams takes a bagged lunch on walks through Middletown and stops to talk to people.

  • Beaver Valley cave

    Beaver Valley, on the Delaware–Pennsylvania line

    • The cave

      The society’s cave scenes combine shots at the Beaver Valley rock shelter with indoor sets; the film’s cave is modelled on it.

  • New Castle

    New Castle Court House Museum, 211 Delaware Street, New Castle, Delaware

    • Inside the cave

      The inside of the cave is one of three sets built in a warehouse in New Castle.

  • A house in Westover Hills

    Westover Hills, west of Wilmington, Delaware

    • A family home

      A mansion in Westover Hills is used as a location.

  • Walt Whitman House

    330 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey

    • O Captain!

      Keating brings Whitman’s poem to his first class; the boys use its words for him at the end.

  • Walden Pond

    Walden Pond State Reservation, Concord, Massachusetts

    • Walden

      An excerpt from Thoreau’s Walden runs through the plot as a motif.

  • Author’s Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

    Bedford Street, Concord, Massachusetts

    • Henry

      Thoreau is buried with his family on Author’s Ridge.

  • Montgomery Bell Academy

    Harding Road, Nashville, Tennessee

    • Mr Pickering

      Tom Schulman bases Keating on Sam Pickering, his teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy, and patterns Welton on the school.

  • Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

    135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles

    • One Oscar

      Tom Schulman wins Best Original Screenplay.

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