Last spring, Jacob Parker, ’27, dropped a small bomb on his friends. His mom, Illana Zauderer, ’93, would be a student on campus in the fall. That was fine, they told him. We look at sophomore year as our Season 2—and she’ll be the guest star.
They were more accurate than they realized. Before enrolling in the one-year master’s program in policy, organization, and leadership studies in the Graduate School of Education, Zauderer taught math and vocal music and ran an education consulting business. But before that, she was an actor and a singer, including in Stanford’s 1991 student production of Into the Woods. Parker auditioned for the same musical through the music department last spring. And thanks to a casting delay into the summer, he saw an opportunity for his mom. “You’re going to be a student next year,” he said, gaming out a scenario in their Mill Valley, Calif., home. “Which means you’re eligible to do anything a student is able to do, right?”
And that is how Zauderer and Parker took their rare (but not unique—we checked) status as concurrently enrolled parent and child to what simply must be a first: concurrently enrolled parent and child performing together in the same musical that parent starred in 34 years ago and that child watched repeatedly on VHS. In three January shows, Parker played the Narrator/Mysterious Man. Zauderer, who played the Witch as an undergrad, held down the over-40 roles this time, including Granny and Cinderella’s Mother.
‘I had to show her where Lathrop Library was,’ Parker says. ‘There’s no Lathrop!’ Zauderer had insisted.
Outside of fall quarter rehearsals, the two saw each other about once a week—sometimes for scheduled catch-ups over coffee and other times by chance. They take turns being the resident Stanford expert. Parker reviewed Zauderer’s application essay (“It was really well done,” he says) and helped her with online course registration. Zauderer contributed her superior knowledge of campus whereabouts. Well, mostly. “I had to show her where Lathrop Library was,” Parker says. “There’s no Lathrop!” Zauderer had insisted.
“We’ve had our shared experiences, and we’ve been able to give each other a taste of our individual experiences,” Parker says. “It’s been really fun to introduce Mom to a lot of the smaller communities that are just so tight-knit, you know?” Parker says, as Zauderer tears up.
“I don’t mean to make you cry!” Parker says.
“No, no,” Zauderer responds. “I just love that, because I love you.”
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
