I still remember my first experience of live theatre. I was 12 years old. One evening my mom took me to see the local high school musical production of Annie. The show was shockingly good. I developed a platonic theater crush on the actor who played Daddy Warbucks, an extremely talented high school junior named Mike Copen. I was in awe of the young actress who played Annie, a natural redhead named Amy Smith. Returning home from the show that evening, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story, the way the music and book combined to create a feeling in me that defied words.
Something about that experience inspired me the following year to audition for the high school production of The King and I. I was cast as Louis Leonowens. I was terrible–an awkward, gangly mess of a boy who couldn’t act or dance. The older performers terrified me. They seemed so natural, so talented and at ease on stage. I was a thin wisp of a boy and deeply anxious about how ugly I was. I still remember one afternoon when one of the older student actors took me aside for a private chat. “You’re too stiff,” she said. “Loosen up!” It was a real struggle for me. But I could sing. I’ve always been able to sing.
In 8th grade I was cast in the title role of Oliver! No need to worry about dancing in that show. Singing was the thing. Oliver has maybe a dozen spoken lines. But what fabulous songs! “Where is Love,” remains one of my all-time favorites. About halfway through our rehearsal schedule, puberty struck. My boy soprano voice began to crack every time I would sing the concluding high note scale of “Where is Love?” Right after the song, Oliver ends up hidden in a coffin on stage. I remember the feeling of sadness sitting in the coffin the first couple nights of the show, lamenting that my voice cracked (again!). I also remember the feeling of elation the last night of the show, when I sat in the coffin so happy that the notes came out as I had intended.
Through junior high and high school performing in our local high school musical was a formative ritual of my adolescence. I shared the stage with boys and girls who became lifelong friends. On stage I grew in confidence. I experienced my first kiss. I began to dance (just a little!). I left high school theatre more confident not only of my abilities as a performer but of of who I was becoming. Spending time performing on stage under the direction of two men–Bill French and Richard Reed–changed my life. They helped me to become a better person. They made me more attuned to the ways that we can use our talents to tell stories well. They taught me to sing and to act, but they also formed me as a person. Throughout college when I would return home to visit I would always make a point to stop by Bill French’s house to visit. Bill died several years ago. Mr. Reed (I still have a hard time calling him anything other than that!) is in his eighties now and retired. He remains a dear friend on Facebook, even so many years later.
I’ve been thinking a lot about high school theatre this week. Over the weekend I sat second row at the Paramount Theatre to watch Abilene Christian School’s live production of Into the Woods. It is so moving to watch young performers experience the joy of live performance. To see young men and women inhabit roles so capably inspires me. What a show! I told the director after the show, “I would have paid money to see this show even if I knew none of the performers on the stage.” It was indescribably good.
The weekend production reminds me again of the important work that high school theatre instructors do with young performers. High school theatre creates space for learning the craft of live performance, but the education that happens in practice and on the stage cultivate character. The hours spent thinking about character, rehearsing lines, blocking scenes, thinking about how the movement of your body, your vocal tone, your face, your costume, and your interplay with other performers on stage–the practices of the theatre craft are shaping the men and women these young people will become. Spend enough time doing these things, you become a different person.
God bless the men and women who are giving themselves to this work! While my career path did not take me into the world of theatre education or professional performance, I admire those people who are working in this space. These days I feel like more of an interloper, though I prefer to think of the present as something of a homecoming for me, returning to a world where I once belonged. It is a thrill to feel like I am home.