Last month (good lord, have I really procrastinated writing
this post for a whole month?) I took the Drama Club to the Massachusetts
Educational Theater Guild High School Drama Festival. Once you’ve caught your
breath from that mouthful of a name, please continue reading. This is an annual
festival/competition that I participated in for three years in high school, so
it was quite exciting and nerve-wracking for me to participate this year as an
educator. I found myself getting nostalgic about my high school experiences
with the festival, and it seems that my students also had a wonderful experience.
I went to a tiny, weird, awesome charter school for just
about my whole life. We had these classes called “Projects” or “Workshops”
which students could choose according to their interests—art, engineering,
environment, etc. From 10th through 12th grade, I chose
theater. This class met several afternoons a week, though we would frequently
continue our rehearsals after school, turning it into a hybrid of class and
club. In addition to our spring performance of a professional play, each year
we also all wrote our own one-act plays, then chose one to perform at the Drama
Festival.
Being a poor school, our budget was basically whatever we
made at fundraisers and some donations from our parents who took pity on us.
Our costumes were dug up from closets, attics, and the Salvation Army; sets
were kept as simple as possible, and what we didn’t have lying around we had
parents help us build or borrowed pieces from a kind school nearby; props were
similarly scavenged for. Our teachers were not trained in theater, so mainly
they were our supervisors and gophers, devoting many unpaid hours to us. I can
only hope we thanked them enough. We students were given nearly limitless
creative freedom—we were the directors, producers, stage managers, actors, and
designers. This often put a lot of pressure on us, because if we wanted to make
something happen, we had to figure out how to do it. And it was one of the best
experiences I’ve ever had.
My mother once asked me if I ever regretted going to that
school, as it offered no AP or honors courses at the time, and had only a fledgling
sports program. I told her that while I do wish I hadn’t missed out on those
aspects of high school, what I gained instead was of much greater value. One of
the many things it taught me, especially through the Theater Workshop, was
self-sufficiency. We had to make something out of nothing, and work hard for
anything we wanted. Nothing was handed to us on a silver platter, and that made
us even prouder of the final product. At the Drama Festival, we went up against
schools with established theater programs and actual budgets, and most used
professional plays. And even though we never moved on to the next round, we
always knew just how special our experience was, because it truly was OURS,
every last detail. Moving on would have simply been icing on the cake.
At the school where I teach, I began getting involved with
the Drama Club last year. This year, I am one of the co-advisors, and I knew
that one of the things I wanted to do was participate in the Festival. I soon
learned just how stressful being on the other side of it was…paperwork and scheduling
and busses, oh my! I often felt that next to my credit as director it should
also have said “child wrangler,” as getting all those students into one room together
proved nearly impossible, and they were often not good about telling me when
they could not be at rehearsal. I told them how lucky they were that they’re so
darn funny. After all, it’s hard to stay too annoyed at a kid when they’re
performing a scene for the 12th time and STILL finding ways to make
you laugh.
In some ways, this felt like my high school experience.
Granted, the Drama Club had some money for us to spend, but as the play was
about people auditioning for a play, the stage consisted of a table, folding
chair, and a ghost lamp that my dad constructed (thanks, Pops). Costumes were closet pulls
that the students and I collaborated on. Plus, our school doesn’t have much of
a drama program—we don’t have a real theater (just a little “backstage” theater
and a big stage in the cafetorium), no light/sound board, and no professionals
who really know what they’re doing (because lord knows I’m not trained in this
stuff, unless a little acting/directing experience and watching a crapload of “Whose
Line Is It Anyway?” and some of the great comedians and studying their timing
and whatnot makes you qualified to direct a comedy….). And just like when I was
in high school, many of the people in the cast had never acted before. I
badgered several of these kids for weeks about auditioning because I’d seen
them act in class and knew they’d be great. What was really fantastic was that
a couple of the new actors are members of the football and wrestling teams, and
these two worlds are usually kept quite separate at this school. Bridging that
gap felt like a victory in itself.
The day of Festival had its heart-attack-inducing moments,
which I won’t go into (other than to say that at the end of the night, there
was about a twenty-minute period during which I thought I’d have to go to my
principal on Monday morning and say, “Hey, sorry, we lost one….”). But mostly
it was great. The show went well, and even when a couple of kids messed up, one
of their castmates covered for them beautifully. I was a nervous wreck in my
chair, schvitzing like I’d just gone for a run, but delighting in how confident
they looked up on that stage and in all the laughter coming from the audience.
The rest of the day was filled with watching other shows, which was a fantastic
learning experience for my students that made them want to improve to those
levels, socializing with kids from other schools (I tried not to get too
grossed out when a few of the boys had already picked which girls they wanted
to chase after within an hour of our arrival), and having a great time with
each other. And it’s fun for us teachers to have a chance to talk to these
students and connect with them in a different way than we would in the
classroom.
The long day/night ended with four members of the cast
receiving recognition awards for their excellent acting, and yes, I cheered and
took pictures like a proud mama. We didn’t move on to the next round, but the
victory came on the bus ride home when the kids all started asking me about
next year. Those who had been most skeptical about this experience at the
beginning admitted that I was right about this being fun (duh) and said, “We
have to start working on next year’s play TOMORROW!” I wish I could just bottle
up the enthusiasm they displayed that night and take it out whenever I need a
lift to my spirits. Even though the road to the Drama Festival was bumpy (as it
always seems to be), I managed to turn a whole bunch of kids into Festie
enthusiasts. Don’t hate me for being clichéd and corny, but there really are
things more valuable than winning. When the host school was announced to be
moving on to the semifinals, the person that went up to the stage to receive
the award was the teacher/director, rather than one of the kids like the other
schools had done. I don’t ever want that to be me. I always want to remember
that it’s about the kids, about them having a positive experience. Knowing that
my students were proud of their work, had learned a lot, and wanted to keep
getting better was one of the best feelings I’ve had so far as a teacher. And I’m
so grateful for my high school experience for making that possible.
