The Drama Teacher Part Two

 

 

This is me with some of the cast from The Clumsy Custard Horror Show - Jason Chachula is on my right and Mark Nixon is on my left.  I have facial hair because while I was directing Clumsy Custard I was also in a community theatre production of Man of LaMancha

I ended up directing a number of plays while teaching drama at George Jenkins High School.  

• Whodunit
• The Nut Factory
• The Mouse That Roared

Then I came to the best play I ever directed:  

• Neil Simon’s God’s Favorite.

God’s Favorite was a retelling of the Book of Job by one of America’s most competent playwrights.

One thing I learned from directing God’s Favorites is that directing a good play is better than directing a bad play.  

So often, when you put on school plays you get the Samuel French or Dramatic Publishing catalogue and study it before selecting the play or plays you intend to produce that school year.

While most of these companies have some classic, famous, excellent plays, they also might charge more for the rights to those “good” plays.  These companies also have tons of plays written specifically for high school or middle school drama programs.  Those plays are cheaper to put on, the authors usually know to limit the set to one location because having several locations is just more expensive and harder to do.  I put on some of these cheaper plays and they were OK, but when it came to God’s Favorite the script was just so very good.

I had a lot of problems I had to address.

In one scene, the character that was sort of the “devil” or “protagonist,” enters the stage by busting through a fireplace and scattering bricks everywhere.  I got around that by building the fireplace but when it came to the face of the fireplace I purchased foam blocks used for flower arranging.  They were brick sized blocks.  I used white Styrofoam about an inch thick and cut it to make the mortar.  I used watercolor and a lot of water to just dirty the foam so it wasn’t bright white, it was mortar looking.  The planter foam blocks were green, but I painted them red and used a darker color of red to give each brick some depth.
 

This allowed the actor to bust through the fireplace and after that play was over I just restacked the foam bricks and reset the mortar foam.  

 

The big stage set issue with God’s Favorite was that there was only one set, a living room, but in act one it was beautiful, and in act two there had been a fire.

I went to Salvation Army and found two couches that were identical.  Now my first idea was to set one of the couches on fire, have the fire department put the fire out, and get the newspapers there to photograph the event to add publicity to the production.  The fire department was full of spineless weenies who did not bend rules for a higher cause.  

I ended up giving one of the couches a makeup job.  I used a chainsaw to rip up the couch and then I used black and gray spray paint to make it look like that couch had burned.

Next I had to figure out how to have the walls pristine and bright in act one and dulled by smoke damage in act two.  I bought yards of black filmy cloth.  I attached this diaphanous sheer black material to the top of the set walls.  The cloth hung on the back side of the walls in act one, but during the intermission we used poles to push the cloth over the wall and allowed them to hang on the audience side of the set walls.  Letting the cloth hang over the paintings I had on the walls just made it look like the pictures were smoked too.  During the intermission the backstage crew switched couches, knocked stuff over, covered the walls with the Smokey cloth, and we used a fog machine to fill the set with smoke.  

The actors had ashen smudged costumes and put soot-like marks on their faces.  

When the curtain opened for act two and the smoke was there, everything really looked like the aftermath of a fire and the first night I could hear the shock coming from the audience.

God’s Favorite was a fantastic play.  I take some credit for the set, but the cast was just incredible.  We ended up running the show six times which is a lot for high school.

The play not only earned me a lot of money for the program, but it brought me into my first conflict with administrators.

During the rehearsal someone in the cast invited the principal watch a rehearsal because they were so proud of the play.  After watching the rehearsal, I was called into the office.  One of Joe’s children had a drinking problem.  Joe was the name Neil Simon gave his Job character. I had collected a lot of empty liquor bottles, several were donated by my priest, and I filled the bottles with tea or water.  Several times in one scene between the kid and his father, the kid was pouring himself drinks and acting drunk.

The principal asked me if I thought showing someone drinking alcohol was sending the wrong message to the students?  

I was flummoxed by the principal’s concern.  I explained that what is there does not matter.  What matters is what the play is saying about what is there.  You could show someone stealing something, but if the point of the play is that stealing is wrong, then it would not be irresponsible to have a play about stealing.  If the play was about a rape, but the rape was depicted as a crime, and that it was shown to be a criminal act, then wouldn’t the point of the play be good, even though there was something bad within the story.

I added that I had money invested in the play, that the cost of the set was pretty high, as far as high school plays go, and the students had rehearsed for many hours and their families were anxiously anticipating this play.  I had about 50 students involved in the production.  

I prevailed, and the play went on and was wonderfully received by virtually everyone who saw the play, but the experience was off putting.  I could not believe the fake drinking in the context of a play could be seen as risky and perhaps a promoting of immoral behavior.  It was a freakin’ play and we were not putting this play on in church.

THE COMPETITION

Lakeland had an Arts High School, and the teachers there were fantastic.  There was no way I could compete with The School of the Arts magnet school, but I did try to have as excellent a program as possible.  I started putting on two, then three plays a school year and one talent show.  

I found out about an organization for drama students called The Thespian Society.

Back in my days as President of the Putnam City teachers I was one of the people defending an orchestra teacher who was losing his job.  The district fired him because he had lots of complaints about his program and the numbers of students in his program was falling.  Plummeting is perhaps a better word.

It was a sad case because the man’s wife had cancer.  His wife was at the hearing before the school board.  His wife had a scarf covering her chemo-bald head.  We lost that hearing and it was devastating to the man and his dying wife.

One thing I remembered about that case was that if you are an electives teacher, and if you want to keep being an electives teacher then your kids have to like your class.  You have to do things to make the experience fun.  A dull electives class means the electives teacher is soon going to be reassigned or terminated.

When I found out I could escape teaching English and teach all drama classes then I was highly motivated to build my program.  At the end of each year I gave out engraved awards.  My drama club participated in Thespian competitions.  We always had cast parties.  I tried to make rehearsals as fun as that important work can be.

Another thing I tried to do is have at least one play that included a lot of students.  

I remember one wonderful effort with a play called The Competition.  I built some big square boxes on rollers.  I think there were four groups of kids competing in a one act play contest.  One group was preppies, one group was like Rock Metalheads, one group was doing King Lear as Kabuki theatre.  

It was the Kabuki part that got me in trouble.  There was a place where the stage directions said that King Lear was saying the words, “Let copulation thrive.”  Since Kabuki is silent, the actor delivering that line was to make hip thrusting motions.

Apparently one of the kids in the play when home with the script, and because literacy is so weak in this country, the student did not know the word copulation.  The student asked a parent what the word copulation meant.

So during rehearsals I hear an announcement [school was out so this was just a lazy way to contact me] saying, “Mr. Norman please report to Mr. Flander’s office.”  Getting called to the principal’s office is just as unpleasant for teachers as it is for students.

I found myself sitting in a chair and the principal sitting on the edge of his desk appearing to be casual, while being sure he was higher than me and sort of looming over me.

“Now tex, why would you put on a play like this?  Can you imagine how embarrassed that mother was to have her little girl asking her to explain what the word copulation means?”

“It was a line from Shakespeare's King Lear?” I thought that should be enough to defend the play.  I mean what was Flanders going to do, censor Shakespeare?

Apparently just saying it was from Shakespeare was not going to be enough.

“I just don’t know why you selected a play that uses a word like copulation in the script.”

“I didn’t, and it doesn’t,” I countered.  The line is in the Stage Directions.  The word copulation is never said in this play.”

Reluctantly I was allowed to return to the theatre and continue with the rehearsals.

I thought all was well, but all was not well.

The following day, yes, the very next day, I hear an announcement echo through the mostly empty school, “Mr. Norman, please report to the principal’s office.”

This time I’m told that the mother was not satisfied with his decision to allow the play to continue, so she had called a school board member, and the school board member had called him, and now Mr. Flanders was wanting to kill the play.  Again.

“The school board member wants some justification for why we would select and present a play to students that contains the word copulation.  What would you have me tell him?”

Well I was steamed about this.  I felt hassled.  I collected my thoughts and presented my case.

“First of all, as I told you yesterday, the word copulation is not uttered on the stage, not even one time, the word is in the Stage Directions that the audience never ever hears.”

“But,” Mr. Flanders said in a way that looked like he had just hooked me and was about to reel me in, “the actor makes silly fake Japanese sounds and  then they make thrusting motions with their hips.  Why would you let that happen in public?”

“Have you seen the cheerleaders perform at a pep rally?  They not only do thrusts with their hips, but they get on the floor and make humping motions.  They look like they are practicing for a career on a Strippers Pole.  And almost every student watches the cheerleaders gyrate in a provocative manner, and far more students see that that see the school plays.”

Mr. Flanders was silent.

“Secondly,” I continued, “the line Let Copulation Thrive” comes from the play King Lear.  They study King Lear in advanced senior English.  If the line in stage directions is so outrage to you and the school board, then why do you allow King Lear to be studied in a classroom where the line is not in stage directions but is part of the dialogue and it is said outloud if the play is read aloud, and it is certainly heard if they watch the play on film or in an actual performance.  You know Advanced English has done both.”

Mr. Flanders was silent.

Finally I just put it to the guy.  “What do you want me to do?  I work for you.  Do you want me to kill the play?  Then I’ll go down to that theatre and send the cast and crew home and we will cancel the play.”

“No, don’t do that,” he said.

“Well am I going to be called down here every day or two to justify the offensive word in the stage directions?”

Mr. Flanders was silent.

THE CLUMSY CUSTARD HORROR SHOW

The Clumsy Custard Horror Show was a fun play.  The main character has these special shoes that cause him to go into happy feet dances.  I cast the happy feet character with this kid I’ll call Gryphin Parks.  Gryphin Parks was the son of the Sheriff, or Chief of Police, or maybe he was a local National Guard Brigadier General.  Whatever, Gryphin’s father was a humorless tyrant who barked orders and expected perfect responses from his son.  I am not sure what happened, but Gryphin, like many oppressed young men, had a tendency to rebel.  His father got pissy about something and as punishment made Gryphin resign from the show two weeks before the show was to open.  I was upset, but I had a very talented kid that hung around and he was willing to take the role of Happy Feet, learn the lines, the blocking, and wonderful, wonderful:  his feet fit the shoes.  I’d taken some cheap pool shoes from Walmart and, in my almost negligible spare time, I had sewn silver sequins all over the shoes giving them the sparkly look from the audience point of view, that the shoes were made of pure recently polished silver.

Things went well, for a couple of weeks of rehearsal, but then the snag came.  

Then Gryphin was so upset about losing the lead role in the school play that he did something to convince his politically powerful father to lift his punishment back when his father made him quit the play.  Naturally I felt sorry for Gryphin.  But I had already given the role to Buz Rockford.

I met with Buzz and asked him if he would consider being the lead in two shows, and allow Gryphin to play the part in two shows.  Buzz agreed.  

I brought Gryphin back in and would have scenes with Happy Feet rehearsed twice:  once with Buzz and once with Gryphin.  I thought Gryphin would appreciate being able to come back into the show, but I was unwilling to jilt Buzz who had worked hard to come up to speed basically in a few days.  I was especially unwilling to give the role back to Gryphin totally, because, well, his father had pulled him out once -- so what’s to say the father wouldn’t pull him out of the play opening night.

Things did not go smoothly.  The two leads did not get along and most of the friction was coming from Gryphin who has some of his father’s asshole personal traits.  During one rehearsal the friction was so bad that Gryphin wanted to fight and threatened Buzz saying, “I’m going to break your fucking arms.”

For that remark, and the fact that friction is not what you need just days before opening night, I kicked Gryphin out of the play a second time.

The following day something familiar happens.  In a mostly empty building I hear on the PA system, “Mr. Norman.  Please report to Mr. Flander’s office immediately.”

Called to the office.  Again.  

I trudge down to the office and Mr. Flanders tells me that Gryphin’s politically powerful father has called him, the principal, and asked him to talk to me, the teacher and get me to change my decision to kick his son out of the school play.

I refuse to change my decision.  I could see Mr. Flanders squirming.  I could tell he felt pressure to do what Gryphin’s father was wanting.  

Now when you are in a position where you do not have the majority of the power, or, as in my case, hardly any of the power, the thing to do is to use your power to persuade through stunning rationale.  I turned on my persuade and rationale skills.

“Mr. Flanders,  Gryphin used the F word and threatened to break another student’s arms.  If this had happened in a math class what would you have done?  Wouldn’t you have suspended Gryphin for a couple of days or given him 5 days of In School Suspension?  Shouldn’t he have some punishment for his actions?”

Obviously I was right, and Flanders knew I was right.

He pressed me anyway, to relent, to allow Gryphin back into the play.  We were just a few days from opening the play.  When I could see Mr. Flanders was not going to stop pressuring me, I pulled out the only card I had left.

“I am not willing to let Gryphin back into the play, but if this matter will not go away, then I am willing to cancel the play.  But IF I cancel the play I will have to tell the cast and parents why I am canceling the play.”

Flanders could see that if the play was canceled three days before the play was to go on that he was going to get heat for his role in the cancellation.  So I won.  Temporarily.

The following day, during rehearsals, Mr. Flanders shows up at the theatre and pulls me away from the activities.  Mr. Flanders tells me that Gryphin’s father wants to talk to me directly.

I guess the idea was that if Mr. Flanders couldn’t get me to change my mind, then perhaps a direct conversation with a powerful elected leader would be just the kick in the crotch to get me to relent.

Gryphin’s dad:  Mr. Norman, this is Sheriff, or General, or Judge Parks, and. . .

Obviously I can’t recall the exact conversation, but Daddy Parks said he had gone too far pulling his son out of the play, that he was wrong about that, and I should not punish his son for something he the father had done.

I explained that I agreed he had been excessively harsh, and that he showed no regard for the ramification his actions had caused the drama department in our efforts to produce the school play.  I said that I had no way to know if Gryphin might upset you [his father] again, and you might pull him out of the play an hour before opening night.

Daddy Parks countered with an emotional punch.  He said his son was so depressed that he was suffering .   He reminded me that Gryphin was a senior and this was his last chance to be the lead in a school play.

I reminded Daddy Parks, and I used the language to make it clear WHY I had kicked his son out of the play, “Gryphin threatened another student and said, ‘I’m going to break your fucking arms.’  I can’t just ignore that sort of behavior.”

Daddy Parks would not relent so I resorted to my old broken record method when dealing with someone who will just not give up.  I had to wear him down.  The broken record method works this way.

Allow your loony upset person vent.

Then say, “I hear what you are saying, but I am going to stand by my decision to kick Gryphin out of the play.”

Loony person vents some more.

Then say, “I hear what you are saying, but I am going to stand by my decision to kick Gryphin out of the play.”

Loony person vents more.

Then say, “I hear what you are saying, but I am going to stand by my decision to kick Gryphin out of the play.”

If you can stay the course the loony venting jerk will eventually get frustrated and give up.

It took awhile.

Part of me loved teaching drama.  Dealing with a principal whose main concern was looking good and having the school look good, well, that part was the opposite of fun.

This was the cast of the Clumsy Custard Horror Show.  
 

This was Happy Feet, the good guy one, with the imprisoned Princess in Stage Lip Lock.