It's The Good Bits I Find Hard to Talk About

The MSHSL Competitive One-Acts are A Thing that did not exist when I was in high school. Every January, schools compete with 35-minute-or-less pieces with a whole set of rules about no food on stage, no curtain calls, no photos, etc., that somehow get ranked and scored and maybe make it to State. SPA sends one production to completion each year, plus does two student-directed pieces for fun and a general audience; Beatrix has been cast in the competition piece every year except her first year, when she was doing a professional show at that time. In general, they do well, though it's been awhile since they went to State.


This year was different than usual. The long-time theater teacher, Seves, is still out on medical leave, so the amazing Jon Ferguson, who directed them in the fall, stayed on for the one-acts. He replaced the previously-announced piece (Under Milkwood), with a devised piece including newly-composed music that the kids would all write and create together (this usually spells doom for the competition, which is highly formulaic). The timeframe is very short (casts in December, but due to finals and the holiday break they only have a few rehearsals until January), and was further compressed by general strikes, weather closures, having to have their final rehearsal online, and the fact that the school admin misunderstood the schedule and the kids learned on January 15 that the sub-section would be January 24, not January 31 as previously announced.

Nevertheless, these kids rocked it.

They took first in sub-sections on January 24 and proceeded to sectionals. This last weekend, on Friday, they had their public performance at SPA with the other one acts, and one of the main people in the show was out sick and had to be replaced by the assistant director, reading from the script. Even with that, it was an incredibly impressive show.

Because of that, though, Patrick and I decided to head out to the sectionals yesterday, held at Providence Academy out in Plymouth. I don't know if you know the school, but let me just say that my first impressions of the school are better shared over a second drink than in writing.

V was back in the show, and those kids absolutely crushed it. I have not seen many devised shows this good, and certainly not one by teens. It was outstanding, in every way, with every teen in the house totally relating to it and every adult in tears. Everything they did with it, from the writing to the performances to the set to the care they had for each other, was beyond my wildest dreams.

And then they were disqualified, because one of the other theater directors (I have bets on who) questioning one character's single line as breaking a rule about “Eliciting on-the-spot and/or active audience involvement is not permitted.”

They were pretty upset, but not as much as they are by the fact that the winning piece, "The Dark Road," is a controversial piece that tries to frame the reasons why a non-Jewish woman chose to work as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp. Full disclosure — I did not see it — but I know the show and understand why its "Nazis are people too" message, presented without any kind of content-warning and beginning with a prayer circle of the cast on-stage, was beyond problematic to the kids. I'm strongly betting that in an isolated campus on Plymouth they are not experiencing much of Operation Metro Surge, but our kids are seeing it every day, and that particular play at this particular time seemed especially tone-deaf at best.

---

But after this airing of my grievances, I have to say that the name of the play comes back again to remind me why this was so important. Though they are upset right now, I really want to remind them of those good bits. Of finding their trust to create an ensemble and work together. Of creating the work themselves. Of working with an amazing director. Of creating characters that stemmed from themselves but were also fictional. Of being silly and having fun. Of bringing audiences with them on an incredible journey. Of all of those amazing reasons why we do theater. 

So here, a day later, it's the name of the show that's making me tear up, because it's so relevant to this experience and to life right now.

I hope you find a Good Bit today, and that you talk about it.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

House on the Rock vs. Taliesin

Image
When I was young, my dad took me to House on the Rock . I never understood why he took me there, and not to Taliesin at the same time...until this trip. The first garden at HOTR Taliesin There's a story (since proved wrong, for any number of reasons), that Alex Jordan built HOTR because he wanted Frank Lloyd Wright to collaborate on a house and Wright refused. But that contrast stayed in my mind this trip. Though House on the Rock has some cozy spaces in the house itself... ...it's really about the show, the razzle-dazzle. In fact, one thing that we learned about the house is that Jordan only ever spent 4 nights in the house ever. he built it as a showcase, as a tourist attraction. And it succeeds, even though it's kind of exhausting. It's also a place for him to showcase all of his collections, from carousels to dollhouses to firearms to cars to jewelers models to musical rooms to full-built towns. I think my dad aspired to that, though all he really seemed to collect...
Read more

WOOF

Image
No, not that kind of woof, unless you have a lead on a pomeranian that needs a home... I have declared this week my WOOF — Week Of Outstanding Filing. My friend Charles proves how well he knows my by commenting: But this is exactly why it is needed. On Saturday, most of my home office looked like this: Or, if stacked, this: After a few filing sessions, it now looks like this — definitely some room for improvement, but better. And after some similar time at a client's today, my in-box there, which had been too full to add anything more to, looks like this: In attending to this filing, which is definitely my Achilles heel, I am making some progress in the rest of my life. And that feels good.
Read more

Reading Materials - an Attend Post

Image
Internet challenges can be my downfall. I always sign up thinking I am going to revamp my Linked In page/revitalize my wardrobe/learn Portuguese fluently while losing 30 pounds, all in a month. I get a good start but never really make it. Last year I was fairly successful in an Instagram #52weeksofhome photo challenge, but I have fallen off this year. But the Apartment Therapy "Cure" is always my downfall, where I start off well and fall down fast. The Apartment Therapy emails always remind me of this. BUT in a recent email from them I did get a great tip: We have A LOT of books, and they are double-shelved because we don't have enough room. That means that we can never see the ones in the back. And Patrick eats a LOT of eggs, which has been key to him losing weight and keeping his diabetes under control. So when the email came with the tip to use the empty egg carton to slightly raise your back row of books so you can see them, we were intrigued. As you can see, it's...
Read more