I hear excited voices and laughing from the theater. I almost walk by without poking my head in, but someone hits the music and a girl’s voice belts out the first lines of a song.
Who is that?! What? Wow. I’ve got to take a look.
I take a seat in the back of the theater. Literally take a chair from a stack of them, this is a black box theater without any fixed seating. There are groups of students with scripts, Lavalier microphones strewn across a riser, props in piles, props against the walls, a rack of clothes, tools and flats and paint. Totally theater.
Seven girls are running through a number with Ashley J Russell, an actor from the UK. She runs a school there called Class Act Theatrix. One of her colleagues, Phillipa, is a good friend of the teacher, Jenny. This is all info that Jenny whispers in my ear. I’m not the only “extra” adult here; the school photographer is taking pictures, a visiting researcher has come to see the students in action, a former teacher who used to be a voice coach for musicals in this same theater over a decade ago is here, too. Like me, she couldn’t stay away.
High school theater. For me, when I was 17 years old, the musical was Babes in Arms. I didn’t try out for any theater production until I was a senior, so I just had that one experience, one of the most memorable experiences of high school. Singing, dancing. I tried to learn how to do a cartwheel for it, sorta successfully, if you are glass-half-full. My parents bought me cowboy boots for one scene. The black stage, scraped and marred from years of use, the heavy maroon curtains, the dust that the lights picked up, long bands of light descending to the stage. During rehearsal the director sat out in the middle of the theater, he was hard to see from the stage, he shouted things from time to time. A pianist played live for us to rehearse. The new friends, the quick romances, being in a high school after hours with a sense of purpose. One student confided in me that he was gay and asked if it bothered me. (This was 1984, the world was a little different.) A guy named Scott Kahney was a terrible singer, but charming – and the class valedictorian. He is a brain surgeon now. Another actor in that musical was Steve Zahn. He played the father in the Wimpy Kid movies, he’s been in a whole lot of movies. Who knows what everyone else did after that senior year. I’m realizing now that it was 40 years ago.
My mom came to every single performance. I love you, mom.
The energy that I remember, that I loved, is on full display in this theater, too. The actress, Ashley, jumps up again and again, waving her arms and suggesting something new. Try this. Do this. C’mon now. The kids are loving it. They are focused and energetic. Some know their lines, some are holding scripts. The technical crew is chatting in the back, one of them bouncing to the beat of the music.
Stop stop. In this scene the chorus of girls is singing what is actually the lead character’s letter of recommendation to get into Harvard. It’s a stretch, but it’s a musical, and musicals stretch a whole lot of things. The performance is lackluster and confused. The girls don’t know where to stand, nor where to look. Ah, says Ashley, moving among them. I don’t think that this performance is going to get ANYONE into Harvard. Everyone laughs. They get some hints, they get a pep talk, and run it again.
During COVID, when the family was spending an awful lot of time together, we vowed to go to more theater productions when it became a possibility. We’ve kept our promise. Theater transports you, theater opens the door in the back of the cupboard, brings you to new worlds. It inspires and irritates and makes us laugh and cry. And it unites. That’s what I’m feeling from the back of the room, the unity of the actors, the teachers, the guests, the crew, and Ashley’s stage presence that is bigger than life, all of it filling this space. There is a goal here, the goal of telling a story, of singing as one, of getting a laugh, of being just a bit more your real self by playing someone else.