Ch. 2: The Write Way (page 3)
by Emmet
I thought back to Jerry’s production of King Lear. Grace had played Cordelia? I vaguely remembered; it was a difficult play to attempt at a high-school level, not one of Jerry’s better productions. But just because Shakespeare is a challenge for a teenage cast is not a reason not to do it.
One thing I’ve learned over the past five years of producing high-school plays is to have realistic expectations. These are high-school students, after all, with mediocre acting talent more often than not. But that doesn’t matter. Molly Carpenter, the retiring drama teacher, passed these words of wisdom on to Jerry and me, and I think they helped me. “Keep your expectations low, but your ambitions high,” she said. “You’ll never be disappointed, and you’ll often be surprised.”
I hadn’t been involved in theatre, other than as an audience member, since I was in college, where I had numerous opportunities to direct, produce, even act, though I usually chose not to. It’s important to know your limitations, and I knew I was not a good actor. I knew how to get good performances from actors, but I could feel myself unable to follow my own advice. I couldn’t draw on personal experiences and use them, apply them to whatever role. I couldn’t because I didn’t want to. Some pain is best left alone.
In choosing to share duties as the drama teacher, I went back to the reasons I had gotten involved in drama in college. There is something intense and , well, fun, about being in a play, an instant community, where we all share this goal of devoting hours and hours, days, weeks of spare time for something that will be over and in the past in one weekend. Not unlike producing a gorgeous wedding cake, I suppose – art that disappears in an afternoon, recalled only by memories and pictures that can never truly recreate the actual experience.
So, we often chose more complicated plays. Almost any high school can produce a half-decent version of Our Town, but you can only experience that play so much. Once, actually, was more than enough for me. Molly warned us about that too. “Nod and smile when the board suggests Our Town, then do the plays you want. It won’t hurt these kids to act in great plays.” So far, no one’s been disappointed.