Fond farewells...
Layton High closed Aida tonight. I think I've sort of found a second (or third or fourth) home there; I lost track of the number of times during the night that I had people ask me, "So, will you be coming back next year?" (Next year's musical, "Titanic", by the way...) And these weren't kids that were asking...these were the grownups, the parents, some of the other teachers that were interested in the shows...the kids were busy asking if I was going to be involved with the next show (How to Succeed in Business etc etc). All I could tell them was, "At this point, no...but, at this stage in the game last fall, I wasn't going to be involved with 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead', and look how that turned out (I got called a week and a half before the show because the director...NOT Dennis Ferrin...suddenly decided that a couple of the characters should really have beards. The weird things people ask me for, sometimes...)
So I pulled Dennis aside and mentioned all the questions I'd received...and got a fairly resounding 'yes', I will be needed to help with next year's show...and on a scale far greater than anything I've done thus far. I'm excited for it, even though I don't know anything about the show. The way things are sounding, they are losing their 'makeup mom'...the woman who has coordinated the makeup for the past several shows...so I may find myself even deeper in the mix than I'm expecting to be, at this point. And I'm excited for it.
I told several of the kids (and Dennis) that I love working with them...because I know any show that I'm working on there is going to be a production I'll be proud to be associated with. And I know that I couldn't say that about every school in the area...I've seen some of the productions some schools have done, and walked away cringing at everything from their so-called set design to their choice of casting (and that was AFTER making allowance for the kids only being high-schoolers).
It was kind of an emotional night, though...it's weird, thinking about it...I've only worked on a couple of shows with most of these kids, but I feel a very strong bond of friendship with them (in fact, I owe my involvement in Aida to one of them latching onto an idea--tattoos for a few characters--and really selling it to Dennis). So, when the vocal director started off warmups for the evening show by pointing out to everyone that EVERYTHING they did tonight would be for the LAST time, I got started thinking. (First of all, I thought about the fact that I had yet to take any pictures of any of my work for the show, and the fact that my camera was sitting at home on my desk! But then I started thinking about some of the kids that I really had come to love working with...and how many of them were graduating this year, and how I might possibly never get a chance to work with them again...)
Then, as a final warm-up, the whole cast sang 'The Gods Love Nubia', the number right before intermission. It's a really powerfully emotional song...and thanks to the 'pep-talk' from the Vocal Director, Stephanie (the girl playing Aida) was already so wound up that she could barely start the song. I'd been thinking about joining in with them, once they got to the chorus--but by the time they got there, I was in such a state that if I'd started singing, I would have been crying, too (as it was, I got pretty misty-eyed).
I loved this show. I still don't care for the music of the show, particularly (with a few notable exceptions)...but I will treasure this experience for years. And, for the next few months, I'll get a wistful grin when I think about Troy, playing The Beast, or one of the class geeks in Zombie Prom, or reveling in his tattooed, bejeweled wickedness as Zoser. I'll fondly recall Kaydee as an incredibly sweet and flirtatious Babette, or as one of Amneris' trivial-minded bathing beauties in 'Strongest Suit'. I already have fond recollections of Ariana and Kendal (they graduated last year).
And I'll take a lot of comfort in the fact that it's a small world. And, when you're talking about theater in Utah, it's a smaller world, still. I look forward to crossing paths with ANY of these kids. I can see, now, how some teachers can keep so active in life--because every time I get around these kids, I feel a good fifteen or twenty years slip off my shoulders and disappear into the ether somewhere. They treat me as one of their own...and that means a lot to me.
Some of them, I know I'll work with again; and I'd love to work with any of them. I'm curious to see what the up-and-coming batch will be like. There are a few that stand out already. I'm excited to see the others discover their own strengths as they move further through the process. It's one of the things that has entranced me about theater from the first day I started taking it seriously.
And, to the others, that are moving on and passing beyond the circles in which I move, I can only quote the immortal Bob Hope--"Thanks for the memories..."
Layton High closed Aida tonight. I think I've sort of found a second (or third or fourth) home there; I lost track of the number of times during the night that I had people ask me, "So, will you be coming back next year?" (Next year's musical, "Titanic", by the way...) And these weren't kids that were asking...these were the grownups, the parents, some of the other teachers that were interested in the shows...the kids were busy asking if I was going to be involved with the next show (How to Succeed in Business etc etc). All I could tell them was, "At this point, no...but, at this stage in the game last fall, I wasn't going to be involved with 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead', and look how that turned out (I got called a week and a half before the show because the director...NOT Dennis Ferrin...suddenly decided that a couple of the characters should really have beards. The weird things people ask me for, sometimes...)
So I pulled Dennis aside and mentioned all the questions I'd received...and got a fairly resounding 'yes', I will be needed to help with next year's show...and on a scale far greater than anything I've done thus far. I'm excited for it, even though I don't know anything about the show. The way things are sounding, they are losing their 'makeup mom'...the woman who has coordinated the makeup for the past several shows...so I may find myself even deeper in the mix than I'm expecting to be, at this point. And I'm excited for it.
I told several of the kids (and Dennis) that I love working with them...because I know any show that I'm working on there is going to be a production I'll be proud to be associated with. And I know that I couldn't say that about every school in the area...I've seen some of the productions some schools have done, and walked away cringing at everything from their so-called set design to their choice of casting (and that was AFTER making allowance for the kids only being high-schoolers).
It was kind of an emotional night, though...it's weird, thinking about it...I've only worked on a couple of shows with most of these kids, but I feel a very strong bond of friendship with them (in fact, I owe my involvement in Aida to one of them latching onto an idea--tattoos for a few characters--and really selling it to Dennis). So, when the vocal director started off warmups for the evening show by pointing out to everyone that EVERYTHING they did tonight would be for the LAST time, I got started thinking. (First of all, I thought about the fact that I had yet to take any pictures of any of my work for the show, and the fact that my camera was sitting at home on my desk! But then I started thinking about some of the kids that I really had come to love working with...and how many of them were graduating this year, and how I might possibly never get a chance to work with them again...)
Then, as a final warm-up, the whole cast sang 'The Gods Love Nubia', the number right before intermission. It's a really powerfully emotional song...and thanks to the 'pep-talk' from the Vocal Director, Stephanie (the girl playing Aida) was already so wound up that she could barely start the song. I'd been thinking about joining in with them, once they got to the chorus--but by the time they got there, I was in such a state that if I'd started singing, I would have been crying, too (as it was, I got pretty misty-eyed).
I loved this show. I still don't care for the music of the show, particularly (with a few notable exceptions)...but I will treasure this experience for years. And, for the next few months, I'll get a wistful grin when I think about Troy, playing The Beast, or one of the class geeks in Zombie Prom, or reveling in his tattooed, bejeweled wickedness as Zoser. I'll fondly recall Kaydee as an incredibly sweet and flirtatious Babette, or as one of Amneris' trivial-minded bathing beauties in 'Strongest Suit'. I already have fond recollections of Ariana and Kendal (they graduated last year).
And I'll take a lot of comfort in the fact that it's a small world. And, when you're talking about theater in Utah, it's a smaller world, still. I look forward to crossing paths with ANY of these kids. I can see, now, how some teachers can keep so active in life--because every time I get around these kids, I feel a good fifteen or twenty years slip off my shoulders and disappear into the ether somewhere. They treat me as one of their own...and that means a lot to me.
Some of them, I know I'll work with again; and I'd love to work with any of them. I'm curious to see what the up-and-coming batch will be like. There are a few that stand out already. I'm excited to see the others discover their own strengths as they move further through the process. It's one of the things that has entranced me about theater from the first day I started taking it seriously.
And, to the others, that are moving on and passing beyond the circles in which I move, I can only quote the immortal Bob Hope--"Thanks for the memories..."
posted by Curtis at 12:36 AM
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