I am totally getting this social media thing. It is become my recent mission to seek down those students that once shared rehearsal halls with me. I want to see what time has done to all of that young enthusiasm, talent and possibility. It has been rather easy for me to find the students who have stuck with this business as they cannot afford to stray too far from social media; their next job often depends on those connections.
The tougher ones are those that for many reasons chose not to go down the theatre path but followed life down another road. These are harder. Sometimes they make it easier on me by having a Facebook page that I can search for – – but, now, I guess, Facebook is for “old people” and the young ones are using different social media that is out of my radar. I have been searching for one particular young man for years. I would get glimpses of him going to college, glimpses of him graduating, some glimpses that he had a girlfriend or two along the way – and then, of course he had his buddies from high school . . .
I will say that it is a bit more difficult with the thirty-somethings. They are so in the midst of making their career and their family that they have forgotten high school, and have not yet grown old enough to be nostalgic. These are the hard ones.
But I have solved this case. I was able to touch base with the high school buddy of this young man and BAM! That was all it took. I had a phone number and I called him last night! It was so great to hear a voice that I listened to every night for week after week of rehearsals – but now hadn’t heard for over ten years! The quirks in the voice were still the same. The sense of humor was intact. It had that odd “do I call you Michael or Mister” moment that happens with all graduates – but we settled on Mister. There was so much to say and so much to catch up on. Choice after choice; right turn, left turn; possibilities that could never be predicted. We knew we needed a meal together. We had much to share. He perhaps thought I was disappointed that he was not the theatre person I once saw him as. He was wrong. Although his career has taken him far away from makeup, green rooms, and tech rehearsals, he was still that same boy who loved theatre and excelled with me. – – Now I am eager to meet the man he is.