Inspired by LitaDoolan – https://wordpress.com/reader/users/litadoolan

Well, I think I’ll speak a little about theatre. My tenure just ended at a small school south of the cities. I began there three years ago and I’ve been through quite a bit in that time. Some people might not last as long as I did. At the beginning, I was hired to run a theatre program, this was about a year after I retired so the timing seemed right. I’d had some personal adjustments so I felt I might look forward to putting kids on stage again. From what I was told I would be working with a theatre colleague that I’d know for about 25 years, and he also had a set building business, so it seemed like the perfect fit. I spent the rest of the summer deciding about an opening script. It’s nice to have a resource to choose from. I imagined sets and cast and felt ready to go. A week before I started the job, I found out the person I was going to work with had been fired and his set building company had been subsequently removed as well. So I was about to hold auditions for a show with no set help, no tech help, and an assistant director who was ironically the ex-wife I was going to replace. I would find out later his parents also helped with productions, for the last 40 years, since they themselves were graduates of the same school. I was extremely nervous and curious all at the same time. How was I possibly going to pull this off? I changed directions in my scripts and started looking for a minimal set design. I found one and in respect to all involved I’m not going to name any direct shows or people in this account. 

So there I was getting started, and I called a meeting with kids to introduce myself. I had a low attendance of 12 kids and really had no idea what I was getting myself into. In the end I held auditions and 18 auditioners, and cast them all because the script called for 22 students. In the meantime I had also recruited a former student of mine to run tech because he had music and sound experience from his own private experience. So here we go. I picked a show with two ladders and some chairs and entirely dependent on pantomime. So in the end I was educating students with the principles of pantomime and minimized setting techniques. That set idea became inherent in my show for the next three years. We pulled it off and I began my tenure with this high school. I learned a lot along the way, primarily that the majority of students in the show were involved in sports as well. Later on in the spring we pulled off a musical again with choir platforms and chairs. Again, no set to speak of. That turned out to be one of my favorite musicals. In the end I was relieved. Actually while I was running that show I was recruited by another school that had a lot of promise, and made it to the final interview and they decided on an internal candidate. I was crushed but at the same time I now really liked the kids in my program, so I looked forward to watching them develop in the years ahead.

To wrap things up I did spend the next three years trying to build a program where the community was never welcoming because they were all bitter one of their own had been let go. So I was this person that was going to make changes and simply not be the previous director any longer. The next year I picked a show with a strange translation, which I could do all over again I would have picked a different script. But, on we went and kids were gradually increasing in the program, and tech and crew positions were growing nicely. For my spring show I was planning to do Shakespeare, a piece I’ve done many times – turns out to be my favorite bard script. Unfortunately a week before auditions I suffered a mild stroke. So I was out of commission. My assistant director recommended another former student to direct. Turns out I would work with him after I returned and he would be the reason for my retirement. He did a nice job with Shakespeare I thought but then I learned the truth later is that the assistant director took over the production. Ironically, she recommended I bring him and he was nothing but torture for the next year and a half.

So the long and the short of it is I turned in my keys last week and have felt quite comfortable with the decision. The program was not going to change, the energy was toxic, and I’m too old for the anxiety. That’s my story, no morals, no breakthrough, just a stopping point until my next production. The positive about it all is I worked with a number of great students that made it all worthwhile and redefined why I direct theatre in the first place. Ah well, onto the next stage.

Oh, this production led to a lot of my anxiety in my writing over the last month.