How awesome is this set? Volunteers made all those gears for an adaptation I wrote of Alice in Wonderland
I've been called a genius.
Let me tell you, it feels really, really weird.
Rest assured, I'm not. A genius, that is (I am actually pretty weird). I'm just exceptionally gifted at giving the ol' "razzle dazzle". I'm an impresario of improv. A facile faker. A peerless pretender.
In other words, I work in the theater.
I've written, directed, designed, produced, choreographed, and anything else you can think of over 100 productions, mostly for children's theater. I've worked at community centers, community theaters, colleges, private schools, public schools, birthday parties, and churches. It's not so much a passion, as a part of my DNA. If a scientist looked at my cells under a telescope, I guarantee the cells would somehow be waving little cell jazz hands.
I've spent time on the stage, too, but without really realizing it I morphed from an actor into the role I ended up playing, for the past 20+ years.
My career as a playwright had an auspicious beginning. I was a teenager working for a community theater program, and the director paid me to plagiarize a movie into a script for her upcoming auditions. It's a movie you're all familiar with, I am sure. It includes a good witch and a bad witch. I was to sit in front of a television, pausing and rewinding the VHS tape (Eek: I'm practically elderly!), using a pencil to write the speaking lines. Once that was done (it took days), I typed it into script form, and made photocopies for the incoming cast. Gradually she began to trust me to write my own scenes, when needed. Within a couple of years my work was being used by hundreds of theater kids. It was a total immersion type of learning experience, with very little room for error.
Once I left her program, I began writing and directing my own productions, and somehow snagged a gig as a public middle school drama teacher. The experience was stranger than fiction, and a million times more rewarding. The school was full of students who were more worried about surviving after school, once they left campus, than what was being taught on it. Every week, a student would ask me on a date. I was twenty-three, but they weren't worried about the age difference. One of the boys who was supposed to run sound for me didn't show up, because his social worker brought him to visit his daughter. He was twelve.
One of my students really wasn't digging my theater lessons. She sat in the back, arms crossed. Never participated in games or lessons. I approached her to let her know if she didn't perform the final assigned lesson, she'd be failing the class. I did it as gently, as possible, but you know "You're getting an 'F'" is hard to smile about. She ended up doing the assignment. She was timid, almost inaudible. But she did it. After school, the special education teachers came to my classroom to tell me she'd not spoken in two years. Not even to her family. They had high hopes that this was the beginning of some good recovery. I don't know what happened to her, but I know what I witnessed was the magic of theater.
Sometimes my fervor backfires, a little. I directed a production at a private school, which almost resulted in the theater/gym burning to the ground. I had coached my cast into oblivion. They knew to stay in character, no matter what. When the fire alarm went off during the mermaid scene, in Pinocchio, they stood there, completely still, waiting for direction. Thirty students in fish costumes, paused like someone had pressed a button on a remote. Within minutes the fire department appeared onstage, confused about what the heck was going on. The audience needed guidance, so I used the mic to say, "Please remain in your seats," in my best flight attendant voice -- which, I now know is not the right thing to say to an audience of 300 people, when a fire alarm is wailing.
It turned out okay. It was determined that the fog machine had set off the alarm, the fire department bid us adieu, and I dimmed the lights. Those kids picked up where they left off, like a bunch of Broadway professionals. I was so proud. After the show we found the burned up plank on the gymnasium floor where a cord had sparked. Another bit of theater magic.
I haven't directed in a while, but my magical memories make me smile. I continue to write. I'm currently working on an upside-down, rock 'n' roll version of Hansel and Gretel.
It'll be genius.
