The End of The Year and "Buffy"

       Every year at this time I am in the same state of mind.
       It's pretty much finished. I have awards to have engraved, an office to dig out and a theatre that has been sadly ignored for the last two months.
       I hate all the seniors. Even the ones I love, I hate.
      The first time this happened, five years ago, the first year I was in charge, I thought I was crazy. I actually went to my AP and said "I think I need therapy, I hate everyone." She didn't even bat an eye, she just handed me the name of a therapist and said "It's through the district, it's free." I was so taken aback, I never called.
       Because how do you explain to an entirely new person what it's like to teach theatre at LHS? Just the basic back story would take a year.
       This is not a normal theatre teacher gig. I get them for all four years.
       Four years.
       I have these beautiful Butt Heads for four years.
      And I have allowed them use the theatre as their second home. To eat lunch, create cubbies for their backbacks and unending hoodies and food and jackets and pants and underwear and notebooks and power cords and phone chargers and tennis shoes and dress shoes and tuxes and dresses and medicine cabinets. Sometimes it's only one shoe. Mo used to leave her bras in my office, I'm still not sure how that happened. Doron and Lexi shared antiperspirant and swimming goggles, both of which they left on my bookshelf.
        And I set only a few rules.  And I throw them out when they have broken them too many times. And I let them back in.
        And sometimes they are truly rude and break a rule that throws me for a loop.
        And sometimes they are truly exceptional and bring me coffee, or ask what they can do to help.
        And every year at this time I hate them.
        And I realized today why. It's that damned word allow.
        I use it in theatre constantly. Allow the character to emerge, allow your voice to emerge, allow the emotions to come through, allow your body to respond, allow me to direct you.
        And the results when directing and teaching are stunning. High school kids who know how to allow? Seriously? Here, have $32,000.00 a year for college as a theatre major. Bam.
        But that bleeds into  room 146. Into the classroom. Allowing them to keep food in the fridge, to have a coffee maker, a toaster, a hot tea maker. To have cubbies and eat their lunch and do their homework. To use my pens and not give them back, use my computer and "forget" to ask, run through a printer cartridge and reams and reams of paper without a second thought. My day is filled with "Kmart do you have..." and "Kmart can I borrow..." and I never see whatever I hand over again. I average $200.00 a year in new play purchases because they take them off the shelf and don't return them. Why should they?
        I thought they needed this freedom, this second home. At first it was great, it was a smaller department and the kids were respectful. The previous teacher had locked them out, they lived in the hall and were only in 146 for class. Those first few years of kids had seen what came before and they were grateful to be allowed.
         Five years later that has changed.
         They know that the consequences are weak. So what if I kick them out for a few weeks? They'll make a mess in the hall, go to Starbucks, wait until class starts to eat their lunch. They know I can't keep them from working on a show because they do not retrieve their stray clementines, found months later under the lost and found or behind the counter? They know I complain to their parents; they do not care. They know I'm annoyed, and they watch as the few Beauties Who Give A Shit and I tirelessly clean up after them, run bags of crap to the lost and found, sort screws and order more gaff tape and they do not care.
       And so, I hate them.
       There are teachers who love and support and tirelessly try to convince these kids that they matter, that they are relevant, that they are smart and talented. And I look at these teachers like they are Crazy Pants and shake my head and return to my wrecked cinder block room and empty printer cartridge and broken stapler and tear myself up for not loving them the way other teachers do.
       This passive aggressive crap is not a trait I am enjoying. I have raised my children with very similar principals and it has also backfired. They have no respect for me. So why am I surprised that the ones I teach also have no respect?
       When I first started nine years ago, one of my greatest traits was "iron fist, velvet glove." I was stern and effective but managed to love them and support their lives. At some point the tables flipped, and I have no control. The lunatics are truly running the asylum.
        So what is the point of this blog post?
        The same as every other one: reflection. I cannot reflect without an audience.
        You're welcome.
  
        All I ever wanted was to be Yoda. Or Giles. Buffy was nothing without Giles. Also he had that cool secret life thing where he played The Who songs on his guitar at a coffee shop.
        Or at the least I want to be the voice in their heads when they create future roles. "COMMIT!" "Do or do not, there is no try!" "Get your hair out of your face." "ALLOW!"
      I get it now. The last two years of self absorbed, disrespectful kids has burned me out. I get it now.
      I do not have to kick them out. I just have to create consequences that matter.
      Anyone know how to contact Giles? 'cause I cannot raise an X Wing Fighter from out of the swamp to prove my point. I tried. All I got was a headache.
      Maybe then I can sit here on 26 April 2014 and say that my beautiful, respectful and scholarship college bound students are leaving and I Love Them.
        Lemme work on that and get back to you.

New York 2013

New York 2013

 

Times Square Harper, Me and Genoa

 

In 2008 I took 18 kids to NYC. We saw Spring Awakening, Curtains and The Sandbox and The American Dream. I said I couldn't go back, because you cannot top a trip where your kids got to not only see plays written by Edward Albee directed by Edward Albee, but they got to meet and have a talk back with Edward Albee. How can you top that?

 

You can't.

 

But, funny thing, the kids still had a great time. They got to see The Revisionist by Jesse Eisenberg, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave. They waited outside the theatre after Chicago and Once and had their photos taken with cast members.They schlepped all over the city, through Central Park, to the Met Museum, to the 9/11 Memorial to Greenwich Village.

 

So what the hell do I know?

 

I got to see a former student who is now working in NYC "in the field" as we like to say. The Founding Artistic Director of the Cherry Lane chatted with me and asked if I still wrote plays---it was a delightful, adult conversational break in my routine of counting to 21 and saying "Littleton, Buddy Check!" and "Littleton, Personal Belongings!"

 

What was called Ground Zero in 2008 is now called the 9/11 Memorial. When we went back then it was still a hole in the ground with some chain link fencing scattered around the peripheral. Now they've built the Freedom Tower and the memorial fountains and it's all walled in, you need a ticket  and you walk through security three times to enter. Last time I got out of it, I stayed on the edge with our tour guide while the kids entered the ...site...graveyard...hole. I was sick to my stomach. This time, with the way they cattle you through I couldn't get out of it. I had to go in. I really don't have anything more to say about it.

 

FAME

We went to see Once starring working New York Actors, and next door The Orphans starring Alec Baldwin was playing. The kids in Once were solid, but I got excited when I realized "Daa" was played by David Patrick Kelly--who not many people know as a Broadway actor despite his long career. However if you are my age, you know him as Luther in The Warrriors. He put beer bottles on  his fingers and clicked away chanting "Warriors, come out to pllllaaaaaaaaaaayyyeeeeyayyyyyy".

Both shows got out at about the same time, and while there was a respectable crowd anxiously awaiting the cast of Once at the stage door (several of my students included), Harper and I tried to work our way back to the hotel, but were corralled by NYPD on horseback trying to whip the massive stampede outside the theatre next door. There were at least  a hundred people amassed at the stage door waiting for a glimpse of Alec Baldwin. I like Alec Baldwin. I have respect for him as an actor. But I just wanted to get through the crowd back to hotel. Both Harper and I were ready for some breathing room, and between the throng, the mounted police and the limos, we barely escaped. And while we pushed our way through---which included me mouthing off to the mounties who wanted me to get out of the street and back onto the sidewalk with the other suburban lookie loos---I entertained Harper with a monologue about how disgusting it must be to have people want to meet you after a show not because of what you have created on stage, but because they saw your face on TV every week.

 

 

 

These are the kids outside of Chicago. The Ambassador is a gorgeous old theatre, and the show was not disappointing. It really should be tired by now but they breathed life into it. Christopher Seiber played Billy, and I felt like the only geek in the audience going "He's on my iPod! He was in Monty Python's Holy Grail!"

 

All for now---