So the work begins and all expectations are dropped. I walk into the rehearsal with my hopes on the bottom of the floor. I figure that if I expect nothing – and someone actually moves a prop correctly or answers the door at the right time – then I will have a HOMERUN and all will be good. Seek nothing and all is good. Well that “game” got me started in rehearsal but soon I realized we can make this work. Teenagers have great difficult replicating thier work but they are unstoppable when it comes to passion and fire. When they want something – they are damn well going to get it. I wonder what it must be like to actually live with one of them. Are they different at home? I have always secretly wondered this. I don’t want to make one – – but I do have my curiousities.
I started rehearsals with our new cast member with a string of apologies, “I am sorry I am going to have to rush this process.” “I am sorry that I am not going to be able to reinvision the staging to account for your uniqueness.” “I am sorry that we are going to be moving from process to product pretty damn quickly.” “I am sorry that I am going to need your lines yesterday.”
But he looked at me as if to say, “No need to apologize. You hand over the role to me as you want it and I will give it all I can for you to have that work you envisioned.” It wasn’t going to be a game of apologies. I was meeting this student as a professional and we were simply going to get the job done. “nuff said!
One comment on “Bad, Back and Beautiful”
Sounds like every experience you have with your students is capable of being full of surprises.
But I think that’s part of what makes it interesting. You never know what to expect, so expect nothing and what you will get can be life altering, even if it’s an expansion of perspective (the greatest gift of all).
Sometimes you’ll be up and they’ll need you to help them, and other times it’ll be the other way around.
You’re right about that passion and fire thing. Whether it’s teenagers, adults, etc – if it’s there, it’s there. And it’s unstoppable.