Rise (Season 1)

Rise (2018) is an American high school drama series — watch it online on iFILM. Lou Mazzucchelli is an English teacher in a struggling Pennsylvania mill town who takes over the school's nearly defunct theater department. No budget. No administrative support. Just a stubborn conviction that this matters.

Josh Radnor plays Lou as someone who runs on selective blindness — the kind of drive that gets things done and wrecks relationships doing it. Around him: students with real weight to carry (Auli'i Cravalho, Damon J. Gillespie), a wife who has been watching this for years (Marley Shelton), and a town that gradually stops ignoring what is happening in the auditorium. The series is based on the true story of drama teacher Lou Volpe.

Rise earns its title without rushing to it. It is about the kind of work that looks pointless from outside — and what it opens up for the people willing to show up anyway. Stream Rise (2018) online on iFILM.