I shouldn't even bother

Yeah I haven't posted in a decade.  I suspect that this summer I will be really good about it again.  Something about that summer schedule just makes you feel like you have SO much more time.  But I wrote a story for the weekly newsletter all the TADs get sent to them on the road.  I am hoping it will be published, but I am going to share it here as well.  Here goes:

That Lovin’ Feelin’

An TAD Tale by: Emma Fyffe (MER-2)

 

Last week Brendan and I found ourselves in a small town in western Montana.  The previous week we had been in a small town in Idaho.  Two weeks before that? An even smaller town in Idaho. (The week in between was spring break.)  Now I know that we really specialize in the small the small towns, and that is where we supposedly do our best work, etc. etc. and so forth, but at this point, Brendan and I just really wanted a town with one of those “w” stores so that we could get some serious work done on our script box.

What we drove into on Sunday was the most pleasant surprise of my entire touring career.  The town of Philipsburg has a big sign painted in colors of sunshine that reads “A Town for All Seasons”.  This is the first thing you see as you drive into town.  We arrived at our homestay, a Bed and Breakfast, which the previous year’s tour report described as “okay”, and instantly fell in love with wood stove, archaic indoor shutters and cottage-like décor.  Our love of the owners came later in the week, as we did not interact much with them that night, but they proved to be utterly delightful- and they make a mean breakfast!

So we slept well, touched base with our accompanist via the innkeepers, who it turned out she was related to, and after much lounging around doing nothing (the phrase “I feel like death” had been utilized several times to describe how my illness was effecting me at the beginning of the week), we made our way over to the school.  The building itself is remarkable and the elementary school is the oldest in operation in the entire state!  We were a little disconcerted by the horribly maintained dirt slope that served as a parking lot in which people seemed to park wherever and however they felt like it, but nonetheless, we pressed onward and into the school.

Forty four kids auditioned.  Of those forty four, I think about twenty eight were K-2.  We knew it was going to be another really long Tuesday working with those Seasiders.  And we very nearly cut the Town Criers all together, but at the last second decided to cast three girls and just have them sing the short version of their song every time.  But some of the older kids showed some real promise and we thought, well hey, at least we’ll have some pretty decent leads!  We had no idea what we were in for.

I taught the Merpeople on the first day.  I was explaining to Dalton, the boy who played Gil, that when he first entered he was calling loudly, to see if anyone was home.  What came out of him on that first line was sheer brilliance: with no demonstration from me he called more loudly than I possibly could have with my clogged sinuses and golf ball sized tonsils, and he sounded entirely natural, and comfortable doing it.  Then I thought: wow, this is gonna be easy.  We breezed through teaching up to page 26, our stopping point for day one. 

Now Brendan and I always teach “Pick Me” on the first day of rehearsal, because we like to give Gil all the time he/she can get to work on the song.  I didn’t even have to go through the whole song with Dalton, because he just caught on to the tune and sang the lyrics from his book.  And we left rehearsal with him complaining: “man, that’s gonna be stuck in my head all day tomorrow”, whistling the tune and telling me that it was so much easier than the song he sang in “Beauty Lou”.  (He was the Imaginary Friend and sang the song with the tour actor- ya know the really beautiful one Petey and Chelle sing on the documentary?)

Brendan tells me the Merpeople were off book on Tuesday.  The bright spot of my Tuesday was the fact that two of the three Town Criers were not only good singers, but had a very strong sense of rhythm as well and handled those songs, including the long version that we had originally thought to omit, better than most groups of six that we’ve had!  Wednesday rolled around and our accompanist, T.J. shows up, having never even played through the music before and absolutely nails it.  And of course, we run through “Pick Me” once during music rehearsal and move on to running the show.

Thursday runs beautifully, T.J. being even more stellar than she was the day before.  The Seasiders even remember most their lines!  Brendan and I  are exhausted because the kids are putting in so much energy, that we have to put in even more to keep up with them.  And then comes Friday.

This was, far and away, the best Friday of my entire short career as a Tour Actor.  On our way to work, we run into former TAD John Jorgensen, who we’d met earlier in the week in the tiny but adorable downtown,  and tell him that we have to stay late at rehearsal and put up our set AFTER rehearsal because they had an Earth Day Assembly that prevented us from doing so any earlier.  He seemed to be heading out of town, said “good luck with that” and was on his way.  We decide to start off rehearsal with an overacting competition, and a Seasider, who had struggled to remember his lines and was generally disappointing for most of the week, stepped up and won.  When we asked him to give a speech to accept his first place status he said, “The real winner is T.J.!”  And all of the kids applauded wildly in agreement.

We had just gotten a new order of T-shirts, so before rehearsal and during break I was very bury making sales.   During dinner T.J. came up to me and told me she wanted to sponsor shirts for Dalton and his sister, our stellar Queen, Angel.  She told us she didn’t want us to tell them it was her who had bought their shirts, but to just give them the shirts and tell them we didn’t know whom they came from.  Up until that very second, I would never have guessed that Angel and Dalton were from such a difficult financial situation.  I have worked with a lot of poor kids and none of them have ever been as poised, open, and conversational as these two.  They never complained about needing things, nor attempted to draw unwarranted attention to themselves.  It was rare that Dalton did not have smile on his fabulously expressive face.

Now I have often felt like and outsider in small towns.  We always seem to interact with the parents much more when it’s the PTA in a suburb bringing you in.  In population less than 800 middle of nowhere Washington, Brendan was all but abandoned by parents when he asked for people to help take down the set.  But that Friday night half the cast, and their parents stayed and helped us put up the set, distribute the costumes, and even fold and sort our new shipment of T-shirts.  T.J. was there helping out to the very end, and John Jorgensen arrived then took us on a tour of the Opera House Theatre (oldest opera house still standing in Montana!) when we were through.  And the next day, when I was taking down the set after the evening show?  I kid you not, the set was down and packed in twenty minutes I had so many wonderful people helping out.

This isn’t even mentioning the fact that parents were making us dinner all week and even when we didn’t want to get up in the morning for breakfast, they made sure we had yogurt, coffee, tea and homemade granola.  I have never felt so welcome and appreciated as I did last week.  And I have never been so moved by the optimism, dedication and not to mention the talent of anyone such as I was by Dalton.  During “Ask the Actor”, he asked me if I had ever cried at a show.  I told him I sometimes cry when Gil sings “Pick Me” and it sounds really beautiful.  Sarcastically he asked me, “What’s that supposed to mean?” to which I replied, “It means I cried a little this week.”

Now we are in Bellingham.  We had eighty perfectly behaved Catholic School children show up to audition.  The kids are great.  The Seasiders are all nine, ten and eleven.  They smile and sing loudly without much difficulty.  The leads all know their lines and are doing a wonderful job.  But I don’t feel the same magic I felt last week in Philipsburg.  These kids are good yes, but they also have tons of opportunities to participate in the arts.  Their parents can pay for them to take voice lessons or go to theatre camps.  Here, Missoula Children’s Theatre is something you do as kid before you go on to high school and do “real plays”.  That doesn’t mean they don’t love it, but it isn’t the same.

And so after many weeks of wishing I was working in a city, I long to be back in a small town.  Because that feeling that you are changing lives and bringing something really special to those kids is really what it’s all about.