Out of my head.

One of the best things about doing a school play with kids from 2nd grade through 8th, is how raw it all is. The little kids are so literal, "I am an acrobat, but I don't know how to hold my balance on a rope. Can I still be in the play?" The middle graders have done enough class plays that they believe they should direct the other actors at every rehearsal (to my consternation). The upper graders are maddeningly nonchalant until the moment when they realize they don't know their lines and we're performing in three days.

But what those kids put into it is golden. Sure, we could have a committee of parents who design and plan and build it all.

We could have a choreographer and a music director and a house manager. We could spend a few hundred more dollars and have real costumes. We could have actual props.

But then we wouldn't have an elaborate scroll drawn by seventh graders that gets a little "ahh" of delight from the audience when it's unfurled. We wouldn't have a big pink cardboard sea snail, so kitschy that it gets a laugh on every entrance.  And we wouldn't have big kids who listen to little kids and help them put on their warrior face paint just the way they want it. Or 5th graders whose choreography consists of jazz hands. No kid would be delighted to pull the main curtain, or have the amazing idea, mid-production, to flicker the lights to indicate lightning. No one would think quickly to tell jokes to the audience while other kids are fixing the panel that fell down. And would any of the actors have that internal moment when you suddenly understand what the play is about, and that you can take the audience along with you? It makes a difference when you've invested yourself in all of it.



Our school play may not be perfect.. well, it's nowhere near perfect, but this is REAL theater. This is where it begins, with the story and the freedom to have an idea how to better tell the story. Then having the willingness to listen to several people have ideas, to think critically about which ideas further the story and then try to make as many of them happen as is physically possible.

This way we all own it. And maybe some day some of them will work in an actual theater, with a fly system, and an apron, and a whole array of people who are paid to do one job as professionally as they possibly can. That, of course, is magical, too.

But for now I just want to get those songs out of my head.

Trying to please a small audience

When I was seventeen I walked into an old theater in Copenhagen. It was small, or as they say, "intimate". It was simple, as I recall. It smelled old. And the stage was raked.

I'd never seen anything like it. I had heard about raked stages. I knew about the upstage/downstage thing. (The upstage, rear, goes uphill. And on they way down it becomes downstage.) But this was crazy. Of course, my memory could be exaggerating, but it was 20-25 percent.  Crazy.



Then they told me that Anna Pavlova danced there. What? Doing pirouettes? On toe shoes?

Suddenly I was imagining the scene. A hundred people watching the most famous ballerina of their time, in this little theater with gas lamps along the apron. There's room for her and maybe three other people. The whole concept of dance performance is upended in a space like this. There you are dancing your wildest jumps and turns on a stage that literally wants to deposit you in the lap of your audience.

Why does this memory come so vividly to my mind? Because I feel like a dancer wearing toe shoes doing tricky steps on a steep incline, trying to please a small audience.

Random thoughts about props

A prop is a thing you hold onstage.

Props define and enhance the story better than just the actor alone.

Of course, props can simply be beautiful, and not necessary… if you take them away, thinking they were truly unnecessary, you will miss them.  Necessary isn’t just useful. 

A prop is useful. When a young actor is timid, it feels better having something to hold on to.

The right prop can help you understand your character. The wrong prop, well, it’s just wrong. It won’t help anybody understand anything.

If a young actor is irresponsible, assign them a prop. (The right prop, preferably.) Force the issue; they can’t remember to bring home their jacket but they won’t forget that prop. Maybe they’ll make the connection to the jacket when they’re in high school. Probably not.

Props can be fun to make. More fun than staging 4th graders. More fun than transcribing that picture book into dialogue. More fun than trying to get funding for another year. More fun than a bake sale. Could we fund the program by selling props?

Some young actors love to procure props. These actors can also be overzealous in their offerings. They bring everything. Sometimes props break during a performance and you wish little Susi hadn’t borrowed her great aunt’s antique telephone. But sometimes Susi saved your skin after you forgot about the coconuts for Python’s King Arthur sketch.

Sometimes props are so simple. A sock becomes a leaf. Many socks on young hands become a tree in full glory.

Of course, someone has to dye the socks.

Internal monologue

One student doesn't show up for the final show, and another takes his place.
That kid who doesn't show up… my first thought is that something happened. An emergency. A sudden illness. And then a little dark and crabby voice makes noises in my head:  “What parent doesn’t bring their kid to the only evening class play performance?”,  “Don’t they get that this is a group endeavor?”, and “Aren’t they going to hold that kid responsible, to be there just like everybody else?”. 

Actually, that’s the crabby internal monologue lite version. There’s something in me that simply cracks open, bubbles hot, and then simmers for a long time when somebody doesn’t show up. I don’t let on, of course. I verbalize this other script, this effort to be zen-like, understanding of every individual family’s dynamics, and accepting of things as they are.


But, it makes me crazy to get no email, no note left in the office with the secretaries, no phone call, not even a weak sauce excuse made at the end of the school day… “I don’t know, but I might not be there tonight.”

Just don’t show up?

Really? You can’t even pretend that your grandma is sick?

Doing a class play at our school is like being on a team that only plays one game. One.

At least on a sports team, there's a season of several games, maybe even some tournaments. You play, you sit on the sidelines, you play more, you get better. But, in this crazy business of the arts in schools, at least in this school, you practice a play for three weeks and you get one final rehearsal for peers and one performance for parents.

Did you ever hear me say, "Oh, if you can't come tonight, that's okay"?

It's not okay. People are depending on you. Your three lines have an impact.

Forget it. Maybe they don't.

It turns out that kid who took your place at the last minute actually has your part figured out. He knows your lines, because he's been paying attention for three weeks. He gets the story and has some great ideas about how to bring this character to life. Sure, it's just an elementary school class play, but this kid is smoking the part. He swaggers. He speaks out clearly. He looks the other characters in the eye. He pauses for effect. The other actors rise to his willingness to take risks and take some risks of their own. Maybe you actually did the audience a favor by not being there tonight. They got to see an actor in bloom and a whole class creating something that wasn’t there this morning.

And that’s just enough theater.

The Solo

The haunting image for me is the lone child slowly wandering the foreground, from stage right to stage left, singing a song in a slow tempo.

This kid was new to the school. She started rehearsals by telling me that she’s been in shows before and she had some confidence. And with most kids, I believe them. There’s no reason not to believe.  So I gave her a wide playing area. But our definition of theater experience differed wildly. Sure, she’d been onstage, but didn’t know what it means to share the song with the audience, or find a way to make your movements match the meaning of the song, or even to sing the song loudly enough to have the audience hear it. Her voice was weak and her body didn’t have presence. She walked like she didn’t know how to move her feet. But she was confident enough to stand up there, alone.

In our final rehearsals I tried to give her some options so that she’d at least look more comfortable. Maybe you’d like some other kids singing with you? Maybe you could hold this prop? Maybe you want some specific places to move? But I had already given her permission to be the one in charge of her moment on the stage, and I was not going to take it away. After all, this is theater in process, and I want them to think about what they are doing and have some power in it. If I am holding all the power, then they have nothing.

The conflict is in performance. Do you serve the needs of the audience? The song needed more interest for them. I could have pressed the point about more chorus, to take away the loneliness of the solo artist; to give the audience another place for the eye to wander. Or do you serve the needs of the child performer? Give her that stage completely to herself, just as she wants, and let her stand on her a strong belief in her “experience”?

Hall of Fearless Fame

There are two kids who showed their fearlessness on stage last year. Seventh grade is not typically the place to find that kind of brave creativity. I wondered what to expect this year.

Apparently, someone somewhere recently studied improvisational jazz musicians to discover more about creativity. An unexpected finding was that the frontal cortex (the place in the brain that keeps you paying attention to what’s the right thing to do) actually shuts down somewhat during improvising, allowing you to not really care what is the right thing to do or what other people will think, but just to do it because it might work.

It might work. It might not.

This year these two kids still don’t have much restrictive action from that frontal part of the brain, but it makes them terrifically interesting performers onstage. Last year they were exciting, making crazy choices and feeding off each other. This year they took it even further, with singing and cavorting to the delight of their peers and me, too.

It was exhilarating and inspiring during the rehearsals. The other students upped their game in the safety of the classroom. There was no audience but each other, so they all did it, making poses, dances, voices .. a few even showed that rare bird: comic timing.

It all went to hell during the performances. Most of the students reverted to what was normal for them; either strict adherence to dialogue and staging or a quiet reticence to perform at all.  The Two absolutely went to pieces in an almost manic sort of way.  Lack of control. Huge line flubs. Wild improvisation that made little sense and was only funny in its ridiculousness.

But it was Unexpected. It was Fearless. It was Interesting. It was CREATIVE.  

It’s a small school with a small budget, and we’re lucky to have any theater at all. Thanks to parent/community fundraising, we have just enough.

Just enough money to offer fourteen 45 minute rehearsals for every class play.

Just enough time to give the kids a chance to think outside the box.

Just enough volunteers to occasionally have a painted background.

Just enough rehearsals to be able to (maybe) memorize some lines and movement.

Just enough courage to regurgitate it in front of family and friends.

Just enough fun to be curious about what the play will be next year.

And then, there’s just enough money left over to do a “big” play, to audition those who really like to perform, to buy the rights for a real show and do it for the whole school. The kids have more than enough enthusiasm, making the whole thing worthwhile.