Chinaball

Despite it being a sweltering and disgusting day in the suburbian jungle of Philadelphia, it was also a highly productive and rewarding one. Mostly for the 15 children between the ages of 7 and 11 performing in their homegrown, made-with-love play, "The Poisoned Pizza." I co-directed. I kind of was so happy I wanted to throw up. Might have been the humidity, though.

I'm working for my favorite non-profit professional theater company based in King of Prussia, PA, Theatre Horizon, directing four week-long drama camps throughout the summer. This was my first camp, and I was totally nervous. Children, though packaged in cute, small bodies with large Bambi eyes and generally adorable facial structures, are evil. They are maniacal, loud, sassy, mean, and they don't listen. They are messy. They are dirty. They smell weird sometimes. In short, the best free birth control this side of abstinence.

But, jesus christ, did they look like angels in my eyes at 1:30 pm today. After just 25 hours with this pack of scamps, they put on the most fantastic, articulate, and heartwarming play about stolen pizza you could ever imagine. After screaming "Aunt Hilda in the back row won't be able to hear you if you keep talking like THAT onstage!!!!" for three days at the top of my lungs, each one of them projected like pros. Even the girl who would get overly absorbed reading her prop book during runs remembered every single line. And they didn't actually eat the paper pizza this time! They were as silent as chattering mini monkeys backstage, and they were as energetic as twitterpated squirrels before a storm. They were wonderful.

So I have selective memory. So I forgot how I almost ALMOST said "If you touch that MOTHERFUCKING curtain one more time..." or when I ALMOST said, "Watching you yawn onstage while you wait to say your line is so boring, it makes me want to slit my wrists," while making a faux wrist-slitting gesticulation. Eep! I didn't! I didn't, okay? Simmer. But yes, there were times working with this group of kids that I hated everything, and wanted nothing more than to give up on them, on theater, on paychecks, on anything having to do with trying to pass on valuable theatrical information to anyone, much less bratty middle schoolers. And it's not like I haven't taught worse, because I have. It just wears on you. When you focus and focus yourself to keep improving, to keep desperately trying to move up in a professional world, and then you go back to square one and have to enunciate the most basic of rules of stagecraft...it's frustrating. And it's hellsa frustrating when they don't even listen. Don't you get it, kids?! This is THEATER GOLD. I'm passing you WORDS OF WISDOM!!! Shut up and take it!!! Oh, god, what karma. I'm sure I did this to Nancy, my summer camp director who would yell at us, "Hellooo?! Is there anybody in there? Did your brain take a trip to the 7-11???" and Joe, our choregrapher, who would scream, "No no no no no no no! Wrong wrong wrong wrong!" At the time, it was funny. Slash terrifying.

Anyway, the important part here is that they ended up doing a fantastic job. Really. I hate them, I love them, they were amazing. Kids who were silent and curled into themselves like snails on Monday were dancing and launching one-liners into the audience like baseballs today on Friday. Their ad-libs (aaarrgh!!! I told you to stop doing that!!!) were riotious. (The queen of ad-libbing, btw, turned out to be the most naturally present onstage because she was completely living in the moment. She was doing so easily what I struggle every time with, letting go of the self-doubt and self-assessment, and acting on every second as it came. Thinking of it, her ad-libs in the rehearsals were actually the ones that fostered the growth of some of the funniest moments of the show. Huh. Look at me, learning from an 11 year old.) The little ones my co-director and I worried would only be able to handle one easy line each blew everyone away with their confidence. Days like today make me even more-than-usual enraged it is arts programs that are cut first in schools. Don't you freaks get it, once kids have a real goal to work toward (ie a show, a band concert, an audition) the skills they lack in the real world become necessary to acquire. They are capable, they just need the forum to cultivate it, unlike their homes where their parents can only command them to mature, to sit up straight, to talk louder, to share themselves with others.

Today was an incredible day. I learned so much, and it was from a bunch of ordinary kids. And I was reminded of my own growth as an actress, from whiny kid to scared adult. How can I be more like them? How can I be less afraid again? How can I remember that I have the power to succeed, to launch my words like arcing baseballs into open rows of audience?

When discussing what it was like to be afraid, to have lost something and then find the hope that it will return, Chloe offered her most poignant knowledge: "It's like when your Mom and Dad go to China. And then they will come back, and everything is okay again." Riiiight.

Except, I guess, she is.