I had a dream recently that I was viewing a video recording of a play, put on by our home school drama club. It was breathtakingly beautiful and the recording was movie quality. But I could not remember participating in that play and that was really puzzling. We were in all of the plays, so how could we have missed this one? My compadre, my right hand mom, Debbie Glenn, was in my dream, and she showed me some of the props she had left over from that play, and I told her those would bring high prices in an auction … for homeschoolers … from that era. They were our memories …
It all started when our oldest, Lisa, was in about 8th grade. There were a few other families who were interested in putting on a play so I found a couple of one-acts that were cute and only took a few actors. They were in the farce genre, just for fun, but this got our kids on a stage of sorts (in a church) in front of their parents and friends. One skit had a memorable line that you would just have had to see the play to understand: “Thank goodness, the table is spread!” Ridiculously, the line was repeated throughout the play.
Our major purpose was to afford our own kids the opportunity to work with others to do some of the things we loved doing in school ourselves. I would have loved to do marching band with homeschoolers, but that would have been complicated without a solid background in subjects like music theory. I would have had no idea how to approach teaching a youngster how to play a saxophone! But I was in plays in high school, and Eric took stagecraft, so this seemed feasible.
My particular interest had been there since my early high school days, when I had been introduced to the possibility of a career in Theatre in New York during a National Girl Scout Opportunity. When I came back from the trip, I helped a Brownie troop write a play and put it on. Whenever there were skits that needed to be done, I was right in the thick of things. Summer theatre at Litchfield Park, Arizona, and plays and Drama classes in both Arizona and California high schools just added to my pleasure in being somebody else for a period of time. I never had a lead role. I was never in a musical, with the exception of The Sound of Music after Eric and I were married, with Lisa and Emily as VonTrapp kids.
Eric was a Baron in The Sound of Music and I was a partygoer in the same scene.
But I didn’t get to dance with him.
But I had seen it done several times, so I felt like I knew how. I always said, “Let’s put on a play and I’ll be the director.” Soon after our humble beginnings, other families also showed interest, and we expanded our operations to another church in West Lafayette that actually had a real stage, albeit a small one. Parents with skills emerged, who were able to find or make costumes, build sets, find props, do make-up or direct backstage goings-on. We all wanted to see our kids participate in the group project that resulted in their names in a program, increased confidence in front of a crowd, and that high that comes from the successful completion of a performance, that sometimes has the audience on their feet engaging in wild applause.
We found a good script for Little Women, but bemoaned the fact that we had no budget for it. So I came up with an idea of doing a fundraiser doing a non-royalty play, charging for tickets, and talking it up. That would have worked, but the fundraiser play was a melodrama, and the villain backed out at the last minute because he thought the script had no redeeming value. The failure of the play that year taught us a good lesson in humility, but also clarified the focus for the future.
After that, I made sure to:
1). Choose options with redeeming value
2). Make sure the kids trying out (and their parents) got to review the script first, and
3). Have the actors sign commitment agreements that literally only gave them an out if the Second Coming of Christ happened before the play date.
I also took time to explain and teach the script, usually before each rehearsal. When I found, for example, characters who set good examples, we would discuss it, tie it together with Scripture and prayer, and commit to getting the message across to the audience. There was a reason, in this group of Christians, that we were going to be on-stage, and we needed to understand what that was.
Final instructions before curtain, "backstage" in the Reed Case house at Canal Park.
Robyn played a waitress in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Every three years, I taught a drama class in the co-op with a year-end recital, rather than having a play. The last time we had one, it was because Robyn insisted on it. Her older siblings had all been in a class and she wanted the opportunity, too! So I squeezed all four of our remaining kids into that class, including Vivi, who was technically too young, but who did a great job. I was a little busy that year, and I unfortunately suffered from thinning of the hair, but we survived the harrowing experience somehow.
For the class, we had real textbooks with homework in the form of exercises prepared ahead of time and presented in front of the group, critiqued by fellow students. We learned how to create a character and think his thoughts. We learned that an actor must never break character even when distracted by outside influences like crying babies or even loudly laughing audience members. And sometimes I tested that by walking around behind the actor as they performed, taking notes.
(I must say that I have seen actors break character during tornado warnings and fire alarms, but that is perfectly legitimate.)
At the same time, an actor must be cognizant of such things as holding for laughs, not upstaging someone else (standing in a position to command attention when it’s not your turn to do so), and not turning his back on the audience (“Your back is bare!”).
We learned how to believably pantomime using dummy props or no props at all, to project our lines using our diaphragms (speaking to the man in the purple shirt in the back row), and to use our whole bodies to communicate. It was often necessary to have classes in how to make believable expressions using one’s eyebrows, or to have workshops on how to pronounce all the words in one’s lines and know what they meant. For the latter, I brought in my massive Oxford English Dictionary to research meanings.
At the end, there would be a recital to show off what they’d learned: one scene at a time, with simple costumes, simple props, and one or two actors on a bare stage.
The other years, we had plays. We had a club that voted on the script we would use, chosen from among the possibilities I presented. As a result, we never did things like Charlotte’s Web because nobody wanted to play a pig or a spider, but we did every meaningful, clean-cut large cast play with Victorian costumes possible. At one point, after trying several other designations, we settled on the name, The Master’s Voice Players, or MVP Drama Club.
We did Uncle Tom’s Cabin twice, though one family never participated in that play because they basically favored the South in the War Between the States. For the rest of us, the play was highly favored because it was historically significant, and its various characters agonized over the subject of slavery. The message? Wicked slave owners who beat and killed their slaves went to hell, but good people, whether Christian abolitionists, Christian slave owners who loved their slaves like family, or Christian slaves who prayed for their masters, went to Heaven. See the pattern? Christians went to Heaven, whatever their status in life. In fact, there’s a really cheesy ending where someone is carried away to Heaven on the wings of a dove, but I won’t spoil it for you.
Over the years, we learned English country dancing, fencing, and how to hold a cigar properly. We had a real auctioneer come in for a cameo appearance selling slaves, and our escaping slave crossed the Wabash and Erie Canal on a reinforced styrofoam iceberg. We borrowed real antique desks from a restored Carroll County schoolhouse to use in Anne of Green Gables. And Eric was always there to be able to supply correct period antiques to complete sets, from his store in Lafayette.
Usually I was told to get out of the way when it came to make-up and hair. There was a chapter in our textbook devoted to makeup techniques and sometimes we had a professional in to teach a class. But when I tried to help, it usually meant the job would have to be re-done. Likewise, I was well aware I needed to stay out of the way with lights, sound, and set-building. I just told people who were skilled what I was after, and trusted that they would be able to make it happen. I was rarely disappointed. I just watched things come together, stood in awe of what they could do, and told them how grateful I was.
For my part, I concentrated on my coordination job: critiquing and coaching, recruiting for the things I couldn’t do, scheduling rehearsals and watching the time, and just thinking of all those little details that would make this a real play and putting them on my everlasting lists. They might say things like:
Maybe Anne should have a big bow here.
How can we make her hair green without ruining her hair?
Teach Josie Pye how to say French teacher, instead of French teacher.
Boughs of evergreen – pronounced like “to bow,” not “boff.”
All lines HAVE to be memorized by next week!!
That hat casts too much shadow on her face. Can we get something smaller?
I cannot hear any of his lines. He must open his mouth much wider.
The door opens the wrong direction – we can see everybody backstage when he’s entering!
Topsy needs a song and dance routine here. Let’s work on choreography.
Special group scene rehearsal next week. All 20 people in that scene come at 5:00.
Costume fittings with Mrs. Glenn during the next rehearsal. If you’re not on stage, she will try things on you.
Make sure the Devil has red lining in his cape.
Hank – just climb up on top of the desk to do your soliloquy.
Don’t breathe when you’re dead! (At least not very much.)
Did I already mention that Debbie Glenn was my right-hand mom? Debbie had energy, know-how, and a bubbly personality everybody loved. She was often my stage manager, but gravitated towards costumes, make-up, and hair. She played piano during Penny and the Magic Medallion, our first and only musical. Plus, Debbie could whistle louder than anyone I’d ever known, so she could always get the attention of an excited group of teens faster than I could, when the need arose.
Eventually, the club had so many costumes that we had to rent a storage unit, and Debbie kept track of them in organized tubs. Sometimes, she planned and hosted costume fitting sleepovers for the cast, where the kids would eat pizza, try on whatever they wanted to out of the tubs, and have fashion shows. If we didn’t have what we needed, Debbie would buy sheets, recruit some other mothers and older daughters, and make Victorian dresses, with crinolines and lace. I was amazed at what she could do!
Sometimes there were clashes. People didn’t always like the decisions I made. Once I cast a freshman in one of the coveted major roles, as the nosy neighbor Rachel Lind in Anne of Green Gables. I was questioned about that and people shook their heads. But I always went by the auditions, and that year I saw potential in a freshman. She did very well in her part and vindicated me. Sometimes I had to cast a girl as a man because we didn’t have enough young men. That was rarely well-accepted, but hey, I did it myself once, as Simon Legree, so I didn’t see a problem with it. Eric, being familiar with facial hair, was always recruited to apply fake beards and moustaches with some kind of adhesive.
Then, when I would cast someone who had already played a major role in one of our plays, in a minor role the next year, that wasn’t a wildly popular decision either. Somehow, it was taken for granted that the seniors would always get the best parts, but my philosophy was that the best actors (during auditions) would get the best parts. And of course, there were always people who didn’t like the way I cast my own kids in parts. Some people thought I was prejudiced in favor of my kids. My kids thought the opposite!
Once, I had to decline doing the play the kids had voted to do (being pressured by some forceful members) because I had a baby due in the spring, and I needed to do a play that was less involved. That resulted in a small revolt. About that time, we began questioning whether our modus operandi of voting on plays was feasible.
When we were at the height of our popularity, I held a workshop for parents in support groups in other counties on how to start their own drama club or troupe and was interviewed by Home School Legal Defense Association on their radio broadcast about the same subject. It was widely believed that home school drama was either very good or very bad, but usually not fair to middlin’. We felt comfortable being in the very good category.
A conflict arose from the small revolt I mentioned, that resulted in more kids going into a new, rival drama group because they were in a new, rival co-op. After a while, our club (along with our co-op) grew smaller and smaller until there really weren’t enough kids or enthusiasm left to put on a play, so those who still wanted to be in plays joined a group in Lafayette instead. That included our four kids who were still left at home. They found rides into Lafayette, while I got more and more involved in our home business.
The Lafayette troupe produced very large plays like A Tale of Two Cities,
Valerie (L) with her two sons, in A Tale of Two Cities
while the rival drama group in Carroll County did musicals with not quite enough musical talent to do a great job. I had greatly feared that, but maybe I shouldn’t have, since over time I had seen some public school productions that had that same problem but the audience still clapped.
Though I was too busy to be involved in putting on plays anymore, I was recruited to be a judge in the Lafayette co-op’s Speech and Debate Club tournaments, and Robyn made an arrangement with Sam (one of the students in my Drama Class) to do a Dramatic Interpretation project from a scene in The Taming of the Shrew, to enter in the Tournament. At their request, I coached them in being a believable husband and wife. Little did I know that Sam would one day become my son-in-law, in the same way Lisa had earlier married the slave cast as her husband in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Robyn and Valerie found themselves cast in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance and gained some experience in singing opera style in a play. In the end, the torch was passed to Robyn to direct plays for the next generation of homeschoolers, such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Ramona.
Vivan and Valerie in Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Robyn
After she married Sam, the Lafayette troupe was under their leadership. They found a venue far superior to anything we’d ever had, renting out the old Mars Theatre downtown (Long Center for the Performing Arts). We’d previously only seen it used for much larger productions like Lafayette Ballet’s Nutcracker. But they got some special deal that they were instructed not to divulge, and were able to make it work ...
… Until Covid hit.
In the spring of 2020, Robyn and Sam’s production of A Tale of Two Cities was canceled the week before it happened, because like everything else, it could be a super spreader event. And there are legitimate concerns with places even during a normal flu season. Unless you have understudies for every part, somebody’s always sure to be sick, and when putting lots of people in your crowd scenes, or having the cast huddled together backstage waiting to enter, flu spreads through a cast like wildfire. They share headset microphones, belt out their parts in the direction of the audience, practice stage kissing, and hold hands across the stage for a curtain call.
Meanwhile, parents who are obligated to see their kids and grandkids in a play will come (like I have done several times), even when they are really sick and sneezing, and inadvertently expose all the audience members in the immediate vicinity to their plague. Face it, there’s traditionally enough contact in a play to sicken a whole bunch of people! The Long Center just didn’t want to have that liability with Covid.
Simultaneously, Sight and Sound Theater in both Branson, Missouri, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, canceled their productions just before they opened last March. Queen Esther was sold out months before and widely anticipated after two years in the making. We were thinking about going to Pennsylvania for our 45th wedding anniversary last year, but that wasn’t going to happen. They finally did begin showing Queen Esther last summer, but with greatly reduced capacity, and everyone has to have masks.
Dance recitals were canceled in 2020, too, along with the obvious ones like graduation ceremonies and proms. Movie theaters canceled their scheduled shows, like I Still Believe, the one about the life of Jeremy Camp, just before they came out (another production we thought we might see during our mini vacation). And when theaters finally were able to open to a reduced capacity, they had nothing to show but “oldies,” most of which could be rented on YouTube or Amazon at home, because Hollywood wasn’t producing anything new, Going out for dinner and a movie became nostalgic, a thing of the past.
A notable exception was Counter Column, which was a movie filmed in 2019 and released in 2020 by a homeschool family from Brookston, Indiana. It had record sales, at least in our area … because it was a great movie and there was not much else playing! We found out that homeschoolers with a commitment to excellence could do truly great things!
Waiting for the start of Counter Column
And then, progressing beyond canceled performances, we began to see performers canceled, and certain songs and plays. President Trump’s cameo appearance in Home Alone was somehow erased, Disney’s Song of the South was deemed racist, and … well, you know what I mean. I’ll try not to rant about “cancel culture.” That gets more ridiculous by the hour.
I have told our granddaughter Rori that in 2021, it would be good to put things on our calendars, but to just do it in pencil. Her school’s band concert was canceled the night before, early in the school year, because of Covid, so we grandparents could only see a recording of it. Will they really be able to pull off her 2021 dance recital? Robyn and Sam played in The Importance of Being Earnest by Lafayette’s Chancel Players, but in a Zoom meeting style. That didn’t have quite the same effect, unfortunately.
But Robyn and Sam are busy with plays now, and they’re going to try again, but they’ll be back in churches as before. They both have the ability and the love for drama that so fascinated me when I was young.
Again, there’s still the desire on the part of the parents to see their child learn to study a great work of literature like a classical play and find the treasure buried in it, to commit meaningful material to memory, to concentrate without being distracted, to speak confidently in front of a crowd, and to collaborate on a project as part of a team without having to knock someone down and fight over the ball. A young lady may be more concerned with having a beautiful Victorian dress and a young man may only be there because his parents want him to be, but the world of Drama is well worth passing on to the next generation.
After all, isn’t all the world a stage?
I love that last line! Behind the scenes info! Good Job!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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