How Am I Going to Top This?

I began this blog post and then wandered away and came back to it several months later. The title was written in January. January 15, right after the close of our production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. It was a week of highs and lows. I ended up at the ER from concerning symptoms one night that ended up being... nothing? Most of our shows got cancelled because of freak ice storms in Alabama. We broke even on a show we'd hoped to bank extra cash on to do PAC upgrades. And yet it was one of my greatest accomplishments as a theatre teacher.

I found myself that week looking at what I had done with my students and asking myself, "How on earth am I going to top this?"

Maybe you've asked yourself the same thing. I think all artists do. The work is hard and you have to trust the process. And at the end of it, if you've pushed yourself to stretch just beyond your comfort zone but not too far to the point of arrogance, what you get is pretty amazing. And exhausting. And it makes it hard to fathom how you could ever push yourself to do even more.

But the thing is, a couple weeks later I was auditioning The Mousetrap, which is a very different play with different challenges. I was doing heavy prop work and rehearsing on a single set. I really felt like my students were getting to exercise a whole different set of skills, including my favorite: stage violence!

And when I moved into the theatre and I actually had the stage for a reasonable amount of time to construct a set, I did something that came out pretty great without feeling that panic and stress I normally do. You see, it was big and it took a lot of work (a lot of dry brushing wood grain texture!) but I had the skillset developed over years of work. I had almost all of the furniture and flats from hoarding in our storage attic since 2016.

Beyond the set, systems I had developed with the kids for line checks made tech week a breeze. One of my student leaders had time to train a whole batch of eager freshmen on lights and sound while I programmed lights with her protege. Two casts each got ample rehearsal time. No weather disasters or global pandemics interfered (RIP Narnia. You shall rise again like Aslan) and the shows went swimmingly. My husband commented that I was the least stressed he'd ever seen me during tech week. Even with twin 20-month-old toddlers at home.

Even when I locked my keys in my classroom with the cashbox and had to call my principal, I was calm. Even when my Giles blew out the knees on his dry-rotted old pants, I was unbothered. Even why my Christopher needed his shoe emergency cemented between entrances, I was unflappable (though the sole of that shoe was another story.) I was prepared for that week and all it held. Experience had prepared me.

Next year I have grand plans again. I've figured out the perfect competition piece to help the kids learn and show off what I think I teach best. We're going to take another stab at opening The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe now that all the kids from the ill-fated March 13, 2020 production are long gone, and then we're going to end the year off with a comedy.

Every year my program grows stronger. I become a better teacher and director and artist. Some years will be harder than others. Sometimes we will attempt hard things that don't pan out. But we learn and we grow by pushing ourselves incrementally further every time. How am I going to top this? I don't have to. But I probably will. ​