“Putting on a musical has gotta be the most fulfilling
thing a person could ever hope to do.”

A line from Detective Cioffi, the leading character in this year’s winter musical, Curtains, which debuted last weekend in the Milligan Center of the Performing Arts. Perhaps if you read my previous post, you may have gathered my apprehension as our performance dates neared. Somewhere in the midst of finishing the final touches on set pieces, hemming up remaining costumes, and fixing the actor’s hair and make-up, opening night snuck up on me. Without a second to breathe or a moment to reflect, the overture started. My heart sank with the tune, the curtain opened, and sure enough, the magic unfolded, as it always does.

Time and again, we open a show, give a mere three performances, and close it within the same weekend. We are left to wonder, Was all that work was worth it? and yet find no comfort in the now barren stage left to answer our query. Yet I continually find myself partaking in this vicious cycle, responding only by jumping into the next production. Thus a direct answer has yet to be given, though the action I repeatedly take suggests how I feel. For the feelings evoked from being a part of something bigger than ourselves, give us reason to believe–and more significantly, teaches us how to make the “make believe” accessible. By taking part in a production, we become “show people” and as an ensemble, we take on this collective identity. Fitting the description provided in the Show People Reprise, performed at the end of last weekend’s musical.

We live in a world full of dreams.
Sometimes we’re not too certain what’s false and what’s real…
but we’re seldom in doubt, about how we feel.

These lyrics became a mantra for me as I pushed past exhaustion and found myself replenished by late night rehearsals or long afternoons building. My sanity seemed to dwindle in those final days and, though my fellow artisans could not coax back my sanity, I found comfort knowing I was in the company of other insane souls. I was not alone in my thirst for the challenge, for all the show people; actors, directors, techies, and musicians, jumped into the grind willingly, despite the products shape a week before opening. The students gave up their weekends, their study halls, their Friday evenings, Saturday mornings and even a Holiday to bring this show together. All the while their spirits remained resilient and perhaps more often than not, the encouragement and laughter seemed to cast a shadow over their sleepy faces. They committed to the process and dedicated their souls to something that, though is expendable in its existence, remains forever impactful in its purpose. Indeed this show was not easy, but perhaps had it been our product would not have rewarded the same fulfillment for our audience, as well as our “show people.” So it appears the tune of the show rings as true to our ears as it does to our hearts. You are a special kind of people and to finish Cioffi’s line,

“You’re all heroes to me.”

I arrived home late last night, began to pull the miscellaneous colored threads off my jeans and proceeded along with my nighttime routine, knowing sleep itself was a long way off. Next to my reflection in the mirror, a sticky note glared back at me, “Write!” Just over a month has gone by and I admittedly have already failed my one and only New Year’s resolution: Write a least 15 personal pages a week.

Go ahead and add me to that 80% who renounce their resolutions within the first month of the year, for it has been roughly a week since I have even opened my journal. Yet, sure enough, that disapproving yellow paper sent me back to do what I foresakenly thought I had no time or will to: write. With little creativity in my reflection, my prose quickly turned into an overwhelming to-do-list, which caused an even greater frustration, resulting in my throwing down my pen, thinking, “ I have no time to write. This aspiration is impossible!”

The word stopped me. I whisked the pen back up from my hamper of unfolded laundry and wrote down the phrase that has been frequently quoted amongst the techies when building the set for the upcoming musical. “Great takes a day; impossible takes a week,” and so I wrote.

It is hard to believe it was just a month ago I returned to back to Thacher after a restful winter vacation. Like many others in the Thacher community, the rest wore off quickly for me and before I knew it, I was absorbed back into the busy Thacher lifestyle. Yet among the typical activities here at Thacher, the upcoming musical seemed to taunt me with even greater challenges than I anticipated. The reality of all this show would entail began to set in and I questioned how we would pull it off in such a limited amount of time.

Yet here I am, five weeks later and while the show appears to be in no shape to open, I cannot help but relish in what has already been accomplished. Songs have turned into music, movement has morphed into choreography, actors have created characters, fabric has been fashioned into costumes, and scraps of wood have evolved into staircases and bars. While it is still difficult to believe there is a show that admits all these separate entities, it is also hard to believe that all these pieces cannot make a whole. Please do not let my slight optimism fool you, for it has yet to cure the anxious pit in my stomach or put my sleepless nights to rest.  Yet, if it true what the techies say, “Impossible takes only a week,” then I suppose we have just enough time. So put on your paint masks, start memorizing those lines, and build those light cues, because it may be possible that we have just enough time to do the impossible.

So see you in a week, for opening night!

The power of imagination appeared evident this Sunday, as the cast and crew gathered to strike the set of the fall production, Six Degrees of Separation. How disheartening it seemed that so much work could go into this creation, only to be taken apart in a few hours. And so it appeared that once the stage was bare and the props were put away, our show was over. It makes one question the very purpose of putting on a play, if after a mere three performances it will be taken apart and forgotten. Yet, sure enough, following the strike I found myself in a powwow on the empty stage discussing the winter musical. I suppose in keeping up with the fast pace of Thacher, there is little time to revel in the reviews. We must instead move on to the next task at hand. Yet, before I can begin to envision the musical, I find myself left contemplating a question of my own. Rather, Ouisa Kittredge’s question, “How do we fit what happened to us into life without turning it into an anecdote?”

Certainly those of us who have worked on a show before know that it is not forgotten after the final curtain call.  In fact, many of us will find that through the natural process of free association a pink shirt, a pot of jam, or the Mona Lisa is no longer simply its entity. Subconsciously, these references will make our minds transcend back to thoughts of the show. Whether it be laughing on a red sofa, blubbering a line, or trying to get a gun into its holster for the umpteenth time, these treasured memories will live on. But was the show not more than the sum of these moments? Or simply an “anecdote” we will talk about in passing?

As the director, Sandy Jensen, noted during warm ups Friday evening, “this piece, like all art, demands courage.”  It takes courage for an actor to portray a character that may not emulate his own age, moral conscious or sexual orientation. It takes courage for one to imagine a world and boldly enter it, as our cast and crew did this past weekend.  The text asked us to examine the power of imagination, and we found ourselves boldly approaching the question throughout the production process. How can the lights, the set, and the delivery of the lines further our audience to believe in this world? We contemplated these questions for weeks on end, coming up with brilliant answers only to change them completely in the following rehearsal. In the end, it was the collaboration of many imaginative minds that served as the passport to this shows success.  So, as we rip the tape off the tile and store the costumes away we keep not only the memories, but as well, the experience. So Ousia Kittredge, the question remains, How do we keep the experience?  I suppose the courageous answer is to believe that the experience will keep itself.

Click here for more images of the play, Six Degrees of Separation

“Hard work” the JV girls volleyball team chanted in a huddle last Wednesday. The call echoed the walls of the Cate Gymnasium, but the scoreboard taunted Thacher with a 13-8 lead, favoring the home team. Cate fans filled the stands in the fleeting minutes of the final set and Thacher’s Coach Vyhnal set the scene for his team: “ You have set the stage for what could be the greatest victory a JV match has ever had.” And it was. Freshman Laura served seven straight points and the Toads home with a delicious taste of victory.

At the Thacher School the students strive to be good athletes, and commendable players. At the end of the game, we often refer to the “second scoreboard” to gauge not the score of the game but our effort as competitors. We commend good sportsmanship and being a good sport is not merely shaking your opponents hand at the end of the match. As Mr. Mulligan noted at last Friday’s assembly, the second scoreboard is there to assess whether or not we played our best game. No surprise that there is often a correlation and when you win one scoreboard, you  also win the other. However, it is with the second scoreboard we note not just the results of the game, but also the feeling the process endured. Therefore, it seems to be that second scoreboard that makes us crave our next win.

Wednesday’s game left our JV squad salivating for another victory, and sure enough they took home another win Friday afternoon in their match against Laguna Blanca–an accomplishment no other Thacher JV volleyball team has been able to achieve in recent history.

“Hard Work!” Is not just a chant for these girls, it’s a commitment!