Years ago, I was given the remarkable opportunity to work with the Grande Dame of Spanish Fork Children's Theater--Anna Murdock. I volunteered as a parent helper while Spanish Fork Youth Theater put on "Narnia". For several seasons, I was able to actually work for Anna, for pay, as one of her drama teachers. My son was in each of her shows, and during one summer show, even my husband was hired to teach 80 kids how to act.
Anna retired, so my gig as a teacher was over. But we've remained friends, and she has watched over my son's progress in shows as if she were his own grandma. She gave him his first part (a Dwarf in Narnia) and has encouraged Caden's persistence and talent in drama. I owe a lot to Anna.
Her daughter Cami wrote a fun murder mystery a few years ago and I directed one scene of it--the Mansion scene, set in England, in which a bunch of silly society ladies twitter and gossip and giggle (and then the murder is eventually solved. There's more to it than this, of course.) I directed the Mansion scene with teenagers as the gossips. And now I am one! I'm Lady Chattaway.
We had our first read through tonight in Anna's wonderland backyard. Some of the cast I know, some I don't. I admit, some of the people in the show are folks I, ahem, have had issues with. This should be really interesting.
Which brings me to the topic that keeps swirling around in my blogs--the politics of theater. There is apparently no smaller world than the arena of local community theater. Because Anna has been doing this for 40+ years, she knows everyone. And because she is the nicest, kindest, most guileless person in the world, she sees everyone for how she wants to see them. She sees me this way, too. As a perfect person.
I admit--I'm freaked out. Okay, I am. I'm humbled that Anna thinks so well of me. But I admit it freely, I have burned bridge, at least really torched them badly. Those bridges are now appearing in this show with the ushering in of certain cast members who I've--um--been unhappy with and said so. Or, in the case of one woman, I reviewed the show she was in and I was honest about it. (And that is the subject of a whole other blog sometime soon). I will need to somehow pull these bridges from the ashes and reconstruct them.
Lesson for the day--be as nice as you can to everyone in your small theater world, even those people who you think aren't good teachers in a youth drama program. Someday you may be in a show with them.
Here's me, signing off. But to all of you, keep playing!
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