Here's to high school....how it flies!

Today...no, this past month has been a complete roller coaster for me. Between going back to Luther to visit and considering future career/education opportunities and prepping audition material.... and then there's Zombie Prom.

When I first started this project, I was hesitant at the very least. My first week, I was downright terrified. This was my first time working with high school students, and being only a few years older than them, it was a challenge for me. Right away, I could see that there was a huge amount of talent in the cast, and by the time the show went up for the first time about two and a half weeks ago, the entire company had come together to create a really spectacular, first rate production. Throughout my time with this school, I wore a variety of hats, but as my time came to a close, I came to the realization that no matter how well I taught them the music, something more had been gained from this experience.

Today, we closed the show and it was one of the most bitter-sweet moments in my recent memory. On one hand, I've never been more proud of a show in my life. I didn't feel like a music director watching his work unfold onstage, I felt like a big brother watching his siblings work as a team to build something very unique and very beautiful. On the other hand, tomorrow will be the start of the first week in four months that I won't get to work with these kids and to be completely honest, I'm a little devastated. While many of them have come to me with words of gratitude for what I have done for them, it is really I who should be grateful for their letting me into their lives with such compassion.

That is what is so fantastic about the theater. It is a place of inclusiveness. Everyone belongs, no matter what. The relationships that were built in the last four months are stronger and more real than most, and after the work and time that the cast has put into the show, the existence of these relationships is not unexpected.

After the show closed today, the cast worked to strike the set and clean the theater....which is one of the most symbolic acts in this art form, in my opinion. We work so hard in collaboration to create something that is exciting, musical, energetic, beautiful and alive. Then when the show is done and the audience has left, we take down what we have built to leave the space empty, bare and cavernous, as if the creation never existed. The only place it now exists is in the memories of those involved and those that witnessed it. And THAT, my friends is the bond that now ties us together. It is the sharing of the experience that is important, not the sets or the choreography or the vocal technique. The experience along with the people you share it with. It has proven true over and over again in my life. My steel trap of a mind forgets the lyrics and the steps and the blocking, but never the memories shared with the fellow collaborators. If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.

For some of the students in the show, it could very well be one of their last productions. They move on to other activities and life goes on. That is the way it works. High school kids are unbelievably busy. Soon they will be working on school projects, other shows, sports practices, choir and band rehearsals, etc....but the one thing that I hope sticks with them is that they can truly accomplish the extraordinary if they refuse to fade to beige. This is the truth that has been taught to me and this is what I plan to pass along.

After the strike, I went to see some pretty awesome peeps in the touring production of Spring Awakening, which was AWESOME, but before I left the school, one of the kids took my flipcam and went around to the cast and asked for any messages they had for me. The result was one of best gifts anyone has ever given me. The knowledge that I may have effected these kids' lives in a positive way is better than any paycheck. I now realize that THIS is why I do theater. THIS is why I committed myself to this project and will continue on to the next one with the same fire and passion. I am so confident in saying that the arts bring people together. They allow us to experience a oneness with everyone. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and faith, the arts prove: We are, all of us, the same.

With love and respect,
A