3 June 2026
A few outstanding moments from this school year, downloading from my brain between jobs.
* Dishes
We rehearsed Mamma Mia during choir classes. That was the only way to get the show up, I had to literally kidnap three choirs. Good thing the choir teacher agreed. Or maybe it was her idea. It probably was. I think it was her idea.
So one tech week day in second period, we had nothing to really clean up vocally or with choreo as a group. I worked with one or two actors, and then we sat around the blue table. It used to be the black table we sat around for Odd Couple. Once it was brought on stage it stayed all year. Anyway, I said "If you're bored, we need to do dishes".
I'm used to having to teach kids skills that are unfamilair: I'm teaching theatre. But also things like dialing a rotary phone and rolling paper into a typewriter. Generational stuff. However, on this day, I discovered Not All Kids know how to do dishes.
Two girls were voluntold, one tall, one short-perfect comic duo. They were supposed to simply wash the plastic glassware. There is a paint sink in the shop, and a bottle of blue Ajax dish soap, and a dish cloth and paper towels sitting right on the counter next to the faucet.
First, they loaded the tray of glasses back to the shop. One returned. "What do I wash them with?"
"The dish soap on the sink."
She exits.
She returns, holding the blue bottle of Ajax dish soap.
"This?" she asks. She then pronounces is "AH-Jax".
There is much laughter.
She exits.
She returns with her partner behind, holding a tray with wet glasses.
"You washed them?"
" Yes."
"With what?"
"Water."
"What about the AH JAX?"
"Um....we were supposed to use that too?"
We wave them away.
The same one returns. "Do we have like paper towels?"
"Yes, they're on the edge of the sink. So is the dish towel we're using. For the glasses only, nothing else."
One returns with the glasses. They are still wet. "Did you dry them?"
Blank look.
"Did you wash with the towel and soap around the rims?"
Blank look.
"That's where the germs are. Do it again."
One of the boys at the table can barely contain himself. "I do dishes, I vacuum, I have chores. What is going on?"
The taller girl reenters holding the dish soap in one hand and the dish cloth in the other.
"I have chores. I vacuum. I do the dishes, they're in a machine. I put them in the dishwasher. Nobody washes dishes like this, why would I know how?"
"I know how," replies the boy, smiling.
The choir teacher cannot, at this point, even remotely keep it together. She's been laughing since the first re-entry. I have a prop crew chief who would have washed the dishes during sixth period. It's his job. But we were trying to keep choir kids engaged. So I got to say it:
"Never send a choir kid to do a techie's job".
* Forgetting Lines
This is generational. All kids struggle with lines, however this group has had their frontal lobes impacted by phones and chrome books, tik tok and snapchat, AI and texting. Their attention span is the length of a tik tok. I do make them read entire plays aloud in class---and when forced, they do it and they actually seem to enjoy it--which is only one small step.
How do you learn lines when your attention span is thirty seconds?
I don't have an answer. But I do have a story about what happens when they go up on their lines.
They panic.
There isn't any awareness of "This is my job, how embarassing that I've forgotten", it's "OK, stop, wait, I'll remember, hold on...." That was fun. So I spent most of Odd Couple teaching baseline skills-which was expected. I expected to do this, the theatre has been dark for years. What I didn't expect was the complete lack of self awareness on stage. Going up on my lines in front of an audience is a nightmare. Christopher Durang wrote a whole play about it, and these kids expect everyone to wait while they think of it.
We do improv in class to prevent this, but remember this is their first acting class, ever, and their first show, ever, so we had a lot of obstacles.
Then the opposite happened with a choir kid on the musical. When she went up on her lyrics, she broke down crying.
There is a middle ground there, guys: it's called improv.
So after getting two shows mounted this year---according to faculty, Chalk Beat and the Denver Post we're talking a decade since the last musical--I now have a few kids who know how to do this. Only two of which can get Theatre 3 in their scheule next year, so we have to do the musical after school. With new kids, not in class. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
* learning to manage different personalities
Doing both shows this year was very much like my father described being "taught" to swim in the navy.
They threw you overboard, and if you did not drown, you were in the navy.
My kids in theatre class and the choir kids have had exposure to dealing with different personalites. Even though there are moments when I have to say "That's just L", there are other moments when I have to intervene. Like when a kid tells another kid they aren't dedicated enough to be president of Thespians. I lit him up pretty fast. This is the same kid who literally bossed the choir teacher off the stage when she was fixing notes with the cast because he wanted to start a set change. Nope. Sorry buddy.
I've worked with plenty of spectrum kids, and as we know I have an actual Peer to Peer theatre, which is essentially Unified Theatre. I can read the difference between "different brain processing" and "learned asshole". His was the later category, and while everyone did their best to deal with it, it was still a struggle.
It'd be fine if I wasn't building everything from scratch and running low on patience as I have to scaffold every tech and actor moment. I became a micromanager, which I hate. I like to build collaboratives--which I am doing, I just have to micromanage the behaviors and safety and design and "how to talk to actors" and "how to talk to tech" and "we're all working on the same show stop being butt hurt" first.
"L" left his post at the traveler because he had screwed up a previous set change. He literally disappeared and nobody could find him. Total brain lock meltdown.
"A" told ensemble members they were kicked out of the show for not attending reheasals. Neither myself or the choir director said any such thing.
"S" missed an entrance because she was in the parking lot sobbing. She had a toothache and was tired.
That is not a complete list, believe me. Multiply that by eighteen kids. We had five that were pretty solid, but even they started to crack.
* The Best Costume Human Ever
One of the reasons I said yes to Mamma Mia was the ease of the costumes. For the most part, we had stuff upstairs and kids could bring it from home. Simple khaki pants if you work on the island, tourist clothes/party dress and wedding clothes. The catch is those ABBA costumes. Those I do not have in the shop.
I found some crappy ones on Amazon just to get a feel for prices. I tried Disguises---I will always shop Disguises as I'm a rabid supporter of local businesses--however they were struggling with their communication skills. So I called my friend Rachel who was Annelle to my Ouiser years ago. She has her own costume shop, and she rents and loans and is magnificent. She saved me on Christmas Carol at Hinkley because everything in that shop was a size six and my actors were not.
The opposite issue was present with Mamma Mia; my Dynamos were all size twos and under. And one was very short.
Withouth missing beat, Rachel pulled not just size appropriate and adjustable Dynamos, but also three matching Disco Duds for the three guys in the show, and additional sparkles and capes and tops. So Great.
I am so blessed.
*Great Parents
When I arrived last January, I had a parent who took photos at our Cabaret, and made Thespian water bottles for the new inductees with their names on them.
This year, a mom volunteered to do the alterations for the Dynamo costumes. I can alter-ish, but if someone else wants to do it I'm happy to hand it over. It was so thoughtful of her, and she was just thrilled to have her daughter in a musical. Most of these kids/parents never thought they'd get to be in a show when they enrolled.
I have parents who smilea and rejoice at how far the kids have grown since the first cabaret in February 2025. Of course it's...three kids who are still around,but I'll take it.
I'll take it.
Scene.
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