Momma Looks Sharp

Miscellany

A. Receiving 11 swords in the mail from my dad has triggered all the D&D glee in me.

B. I mean D&D as in Jason's 4 Groups of People (F, D&D, Peace, and Bobo), not as in the actual game.

C. I'm stating for the record that I have never once played D&D.

D. Although a growing number of my speech/drama kids are apparently meeting on Monday nights to play D&D together.

E. It heightens the irony of my being called "Coach" when my "jocks" get together to play D&D, doesn't it?

F. The kids are as excited as I am over the swords. They've claimed their favorites and, to my absolute delight, they've been really, really great about being careful with them. Macbeth and Macduff work on their fight scene in slow motion, per my instructions, AND they switch themselves back to wooden staffs anytime they find kinks to work out. I'm quite proud of them.

G. Still, the swords were pointy. So I jumped at the chance when a dad at the school offered to dull them down for me (he's a metalworker). He dropped them off for me after school today, and they're nice and round at the tips.

H. Oddly, at the same time that I felt relief for not having to worry as much about my students' safety, I was disappointed that I didn't have a trunk full of suitable anti-zombie weapons.

I. Because, yes, I had actually thought about how I now had lots of protection in the event of a zombie attack, provided I could get to my car.

J. I had my hair colored this week. I wanted something different.

K. I was not so fond of the results, but after a few days I've decided it's because of how the lady cut my bangs, not the color. I'm liking the boldness of the color.

L. Even though one of my assistant coaches said, "Huh! It makes you look... older. Which is fine, if that's what you were going for."

M. My students all love it, though.

N. Which might just call the color more into question because, after all, #D.

O. The bangs are definitely wrong.

P. One of my classes is starting the Goal Project. (Remember that one, former students o' mine?)

Q. Which means I also need to come up with a risky goal to accomplish in the next month.

R. There's another speech meet tomorrow. We leave at 5:30 AM.

S. They pulled the entire student body out to the football field today to spell out "Buckle Up" for an advertising contest.

T. I was in the bottom of the "C".

U. This was after a fire drill earlier in the day.

V. And a bunch of kids went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter. Then they stayed for the 3:15 AM showing.

W. It was not the most productive of days.

X. That's it. There's no concluding point to this post. As I said, "Miscellany."

The Honor of Your Name

Long ago I got used to being called different names by my students. Often affectionate ("Water"), some are humorous ("Grandma"), some remarkably clever ("H2Owen"), some unimaginative ("Waterbottle"), and some are inappropriate to print here.

I was, however, mystified when some of my speech team boys started referring to me as "Lady Deathwhisper."

Mmmkay....

It is a compound noun of three syllables, but kind of a stretch still. "Am I that strict?" I wondered, with not a little pride to merit such a title.

No, they clarified. Apparently it's a World of Warcraft character, whose voice is remarkably similar to mine. Here, I'll show you:



What do you think? Does it sound like me?

According to the WoWWiki:

The lich Lady Deathwhisper is the Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned and the second boss of the Icecrown Citadel raid.

It does not make a great deal of sense to me, either, but it sounds impressive. I'll allow it.

Great Big Stuff

Contents of my car:

- 1 empty wine jug, stripped of label
- 5 bottles of fake blood
- 3 ignitor palm switches
- 1 packet flash cotton
- 1 up-lamp
- 1 fog machine
- 1 sewing machine
- 10 black hooded capes (Thanks, Rachel, for the sewing help!)
- 6 swords

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes!

The Choice is Mine

And I chose sleep.

Well, to be accurate, I chose sleep, my Netflix Queue, two books (so far), and homemade rice pudding with coconut milk.

And maybe some Cafe Rio later for dinner.

It's been a decent day.

Home

I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I've had a headache since first period and a cough since 3rd.

Shortly after school let out, I went to the secretary and filled out the form for a sick day tomorrow.

I'm allowed, right? It's okay for me to take a day off and sleep? I could still get up and go to work. I can still talk and stand upright (for a few minutes at a time, at least). I could do it.

Or I could sleep.

Beautiful People of Denver...

...I have a story for you.

I showed my drama class "Clue" as part of our post-show celebration. As they watch, the students are required to list the characters, describe them, and then cast the show using the people in our class.

The kids loved the movie (of course), and were excited to share their cast lists afterwards.

As the final question in our discussion, I asked the students which character they'd want to play, if they had a choice. They answered in chorus. To my surprise, more than half the class said, "Wadsworth!"

To which Dom, this adorable sophomore who's about 5 years old developmentally, said, "I'd go to Colfax!"

Hah!

(Yeah, see? You have to know Denver to get it. But, since you were nice enough to read this far anyway, here's two movie clips for you:

Next

I love swimming in the ocean.

I love floating in the waves, feeling weightless and very much aware of the up and down pattern. I love the tumble of the rougher waves, the loss of balance and control when I get swamped and suddenly it's all salt water and sand.

Yesterday felt like that moment when I finally find the right way up and get my head above water for a breath of air. There's always that next wave coming, usually faster, harder, and higher than I expect; and I'll get swamped again. But, for a moment, I catch a breath.

I worked three 14+ hour days in a row last week on top of my usual 10-hour days of rehearsals and practices and classes. It all went well - the show was good, the audience turnout was good, the speech meet Saturday was good for the kids (as in, we didn't do as well as usual, but they've been slacking off lately in practicing, so it's good for them to get a little humble), the improv show we went to after the meet was a huge hit with the kids, and I'm finally down to only one production in the works. (Sort of. Rachel, Jesse, and I are planning to meet soon to talk musical stuff, so the reprieve will indeed be short-lived.)

So, yesterday was my gasp for breath. I called my parents on the drive home from the improv show Saturday night when I was finally off-duty. I needed them to talk me home so I'd stay awake the whole way. I made it, thanks to them. I greeted my neglected kitty, and I crawled into bed immediately.

I got up in time for church and actually stayed for the full block. I'd close my eyes for the prayers and have a really hard time opening them again. One woman sat by me in Relief Society.

"How are you doing?" she asked, friendly-like.

"Oh, fine," I replied.

"Really? Because you don't look so fine sitting over here."

"Well, I'm kind of exhausted," I said, a little surprised at her forwardness.

"Why? Fun weekend?"

"Heh. Kind of. I worked a long day yesterday."

"Worked?" She blinked at me. "What did you have to do besides... teach?"

I'd try to explain, but I just didn't have the energy to get into what, exactly, it means to be a speech coach/theater teacher. I stuck to a generic response and, thankfully, the lesson started up.

After church I started a load of laundry, then fell asleep for a few-hour-nap. Happily, Rachel, Ben, and Jack came down for dinner. Even happier, they brought dinner with them, since I haven't been to a grocery store in two weeks except for props/paint/costume-parts runs. They took off around seven, and I wrapped up the laundry.

And then I heard the rumbling as the water rushed past me back to the sea. I took a deep breath, found my footing, and dove back under the next wave.

Happiness Is...

- A show where every student in the cast shows up
- A gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a thank-you card
- A show that the audience enjoyed despite all kinds of mistakes and sloppiness of execution
- A note from a student that says "[She] knows Romeo and Juliet by heart, thanks to [me]"
- A kid who's missed a lot of class for court appearances/being locked up who tackles the problem of making a jail that rolls on wheels whole-heartedly and who does a great job figuring it out
- Having a place to stay near school so I didn't have to drive all the way home last night
- A little sister who steals my beauty products, even though we're both grown-ups
- The chance to see my parents next weekend
- Only one more show to go before I only have to work on one production!

Not a Day Goes By

So you want to take your students to a speech meet?

2 Weeks Before: Create and post sign-up sheet for that meet. Remind students daily of deadline for signing up.

The Monday Before: Pull down sign-up sheet and register online. Hunt down and convince students to add/switch events as needed. Practice after school.

The Week Before: Update online registration constantly as students add/drop as health/grades/parents/relationships/whims demand.

The Tuesday Before: Check eligibility list; inform students whether or not they can go. Practice after school.

The Wednesday Before: Confirm bus, paperwork for student travel, registration, and submit request for check for entry fees. Practice after school.

The Thursday Before: Compose and send out letter to all students attending describing the details of the meet. Hold team meeting to confirm students attending and get those who haven't been practicing in to practice.

The Day Before: Deal with last-minute changes to registration. Practice after school. Attempt to get to bed early, since you have to meet the kids/bus at 5:30 AM.

The Day of the Meet: All kinds of crazy.

The Monday After the Meet: Take photo of students who won last meet, email photo and press release to local paper. Write and email announcement of how you did to school secretary and administration. Record points for placement of each student who competed. Post sign-up sheet for meet two weeks from now, pick up plan for the next meet that week at "The Monday Before".


And repeat.

Blood Brothers

Do you remember the movie "Defending Your Life"? Where Albert Brooks dies in the beginning while listening to "Somethings Coming" and goes to a video-and-pasta-filled version of heaven?

One of my favorite lines:

Waiter: You like pie?
Albert Brooks' Character: I love pie.
Waiter: I like you. I'ma gonna bring you nine pies.


My dad reminds me of that scene. Sometimes it's because he's quoting it. Sometimes it's because we have phone conversations like this:

My dad: You need anything for Macbeth?
Me: No, we're good, Dad.
My dad: Nonsense. I'm going to buy you blood. Look! Zesty Mint Flavored!

Oh, I love my dad.

And I have had so much fun this last week or so. I keep getting packages in the mail at school, and I, of course, open them right away and pull out the latest prop. I've got five different types of stage blood on my desk at school right now. And, of course, I immediately open each bottle and test it out on my hands. The other teachers and students are getting used to seeing me head down the hallway towards the bathroom with bloody hands and a big smile on my face.

I might even let my students play with it sometime.

Nah, I kid. This morning I led my class out to the parking lot to try out the new flash paper ignitor. I handed one girl a bucket of water and instructed her to "throw it on anything that catches fire, including me if need be." Then I put a little tuft of flash paper in the metal thimble-sized cup in my palm and flicked the switch.

"Whoosh," went the paper.
"Whoa," went my class.

And then they all stopped complaining about the cold and wanted a turn.

I'm thinking it goes either with the witches or Ghost-Zombie Banquo's disappearance from the banquet. Not sure yet, but it will certainly be used.

We then went back to the room to keep running the show (we're in my room since the theater's filled with stuff for Robin Hood). When we hit the first murder scene, we just had to try out the blood:



(Yup, the dagger's a present, too. It's got a clear blade that fills with blood from the handle when you tilt it.)



I love it. The students do, too. Then, I get this email from my mom:

We are definitely doing puffy shirts over the holidays. And anything else that might help you get ahead of the game.

She's insisting we spend the holidays sewing puffy shirts for the MTHS costume storage. This is not too long after spending the holidays sewing several dozen white skirts for a certain musical.

My parents are awesome. The end.


P.S. Here's the clip of the restaurant scene, if you want to see it:

Racing With the Clock

I dyed 13 tunics last night, all of which I had sewn out of white sheets I got donated from a hotel last spring. I also finished sewing a stack of Robin Hood-style hats, a pair of pants for Prince John, and hunted down some sound effects.

I taught three classes today, filled out a bunch of paperwork to clean up from the meet, registered our team for the next meet this Saturday, ran a 2.5-hour after-school dress rehearsal while playing Prince John from the booth (since he didn't show up), then stayed after for another hour to help two kids block their speech duet to convert it to a duo interp for the tournament meet Saturday.

I want life to slow down.

Funny thing is, it already has. Today felt... doable.

But I'd still like a day off, please.

Till We Meet Again

Glory be, we survived the Home Speech Meet.

Even happier, it went really well.

It so wasn't because of me - my assistant coach, Paula, was phenomenal. She subbed at the school most days this past week, and she often stepped into my room to see what she could do to help. She also was fantastic the day-of at just getting stuff done - if there was a need, she did it and did it well without coming to me first to check. I love that.

My other assistant coach, Trice, stepped up and ran the debate draw for the first time. A small group of students stayed after school Friday to help set up the rooms, won with promises of extra credit and candy after the speech seniors collectively abandoned their earlier promises of help for a Key Club project. The parents brought food, the judges came and worked well, the Team Mom did a fantastic job setting up and cleaning up, and most of teams came on time.

We started about 30 minutes late, since we had to wait for two teams to show. However, since I had so many judges and so few competitors (relatively speaking - we had 8 schools competing with around 80 students. Normal meets get 15 schools with 160 students), I sorted the speechers into sections of 4 or 5 students (rather than 5-7). As a result, we not only caught up on the lost time, we wrapped up 30 minutes early. Cleanup happened swiftly, thanks to my speechers who stayed after to help and who got started as soon as the competitors were out of the rooms (before awards). We were totally done and out of the building by 5:20, although I had to stick around in the parking lot until 6 waiting for two students to get picked up, thereby bringing my day to a solid 12 hours.

I ran back to the condo to throw my stuff and cat into the car and head back down the mountain. I celebrated the day by watching the Halloween episode of "Community" with Rachel and Ben. Then I went home and slept for 11 hours. And now I'm dying costumes for Robin Hood.

Another week, another production.

I especially enjoyed having Rachel and Brian come judge - it was fun to share a little of what I do with them, and I liked having people I like to talk to around during the day. I think they both had fun, too. Brian even asked if there were other meets in the Denver area he could come judge at. I told him we were heading to Lakewood High School on Saturday, and promised to call that coach on Monday to ask if they needed more judges. He was especially excited to hear that it was a tournament meet, so it will have the kind of debate he did in high school (as opposed to the festival-style debate that we do and he so frequently poo-poos).

The night before the meet, Rachel, Brian, Ben, and Jack came up to the condo. We had dinner together and played a game after I made sure the team doing the homestays were all secured. It was nice to get some Jack-time and have something to look forward to in the midst of the craziness. Also, Rachel gave me a "yay-Speech Meet" present, which I'm very much looking forward to reading.

You're the Apple of my Eye

Yesterday in Speech class I mentioned that one of my favorite sounds in the world is the sound an apple makes when you toss it up in the air and catch it in one hand.

Today, returning from a trip to the main office, I passed a student coming out of my room. "I left you something on your computer," she said, mysteriously.

"thinking/throwing/magic-sound apple"

Exactly what I needed today.

A Man of No Importance

This helped to cheer me up:

We started blocking Macbeth this morning. The bleeding sargeant came stumbling into the scene and bowed to the king, like I had taught them.

"Now how do I stand up?" the sargeant asked from her bent-over position.

"Duncan needs to give you permission, right?" I said.

Duncan asked, "How do I do that?"

"Well, what could you do?" I asked.

Duncan thought for a moment. "I could say, 'Rise sir'-"

And the entire class joined in, laughing, "from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most decorous!"

And, oh, I was so proud and so happy. Mah babies are quoting Wilde while rehearsing Shakespeare! What could be better than that?

Don't

I had a crappy day. Too much to do, no time to do it because there's so much to do, and it was capped off by a parent calling me (on my cell phone, no less) to yell at me about what a crappy job she thinks I am doing.

I know that she's misdirecting a lot of anger at me. I know she's wrong and unfair. I know.

Still, it's a crappy thing to have to endure on my commute home from a very hard day. And it took a lot of will power and a little Phra Bart training to calm down enough to 1) not cry and 2) drive safely the rest of the way home.

I want it to be two weeks from now.

Laundry Quintet

While the thought of starting church at 9:00 in the morning made me dread having to set my alarm on the weekend, I do have have to admit that it was grand to be done with church at noon today.

I had declared today to be my catch-up day. I made some phone calls, washed dishes, took out the trash, and caught up on my laundry. I'm not sure whether it's with shame or with pride that I tell you I've done five loads of laundry today. I even stripped my bed and washed my sheets!

Yes, it is exciting.

Things, as always, have been frantic. They will, of course, continue to be that way too, which is why I welcomed a chance to take care of some housekeeping while I caught my breath.

Tomorrow after school I'm having dinner with Jill before packing Natasha and myself up for a week at the condo. With the home speech meet on Saturday, a play the following week, and all of the usual school craziness, I decided it would be easiest to be up there for the week so I could be on hand to take care of last-minute stuff AND have a hope of getting decent sleep.

This weekend was fun, though. Thursday night Rachel cooked schnitzel as a birthday dinner celebration for me and Miranda. Happily, the Walkers were in town visiting for the weekend. Friday was a Teacher Work Day, since midterm exams were this week, but I took my kiddos to a speech meet instead of doing grades and attending a workshop on child abuse. Whee.

It was really nice to do a speech meet and still have my Saturday free. I went to lunch with the gang, braved the lines at JoAnns to get fabric for Robin Hood costumes, and played games/ate garlic knots at Rachel's with the others in the evening.

The Home Meet is less than a week away. Oddly, I feel like things are under control. I'll probably still be at school way too late each day, and I'll probably keep working through lunch, as has been by habit the last few weeks. Still, my assistant coaches and team mom have been all over their jobs, and I think we'll be ready.

Here's what's needed for a speech meet:

1) A schedule of events
2) Formal invitations to all schools
3) A website for schools to register students
4) Parents to host students overnight from school more than 3 hours away
5) Breakfast, lunch, and snacks for 200+ students
6) Breakfast, lunch, and snacks for 65 coaches/judges
7) Classrooms for all events (pre-scheduled)
8) Maps of the school
9) Door and directional signs
10) Arrangements for janitors, administrators, and police to be on hand
11) 100 copies of ballots for 11 different events
12) 6 Value Debate topics
13) 50 or so Creative Storytelling and Impromptu Speaking topics
14) Index cards, scratch paper, and pencils for draw room
15) Packets for coaches with instructions
16) Packets for ballots after they're completed
17) Computer system for tabbing Individual Events and for Debate
18) Back-up plan for when network/website/power goes down and we can't use the computer
19) 50 judges' cards for scheduling rounds
20) Tables set up for registration, judges' check-in, and ballot-turn-in
21) Trophies/medals/ribbons for 11 different events, including back-ups in case of ties
22) Instructions and handouts for judges' training, to be held Wednesday and Thursday night
23) Stopwatches for judges
24) Thank-you gifts/cards for all the helpers
25) The will/stamina to get through this year and still want to host another one next year.

Mai bpen rai, right?

God, I Hope I Get It

I worked through my lunch and stayed at school for two hours beyond after-school speech practice today, but I actually managed to cut Macbeth and cast it. It still had over 20 characters, even after I cut it (from 87 pages to 42!), and it was only with the help of two spreadsheets, several sticky notes, and a lot of rereading of the script that I figured out how to make it work with only 10 actors (two of whom only want small parts).

I'll have to get to school early tomorrow to run off copies of the cut script before class. But they so wanted to know the cast before the long weekend, and I certainly can't blame them for that. Then, during class today when we were talking through the story of the play, Molly leaned forward into the circle and said, "Guys, we should commit right now to doing a good play. Not make it funny or do stupid things for laughs - a GOOD play. So everyone should memorize their lines right away and let's make it awesome."*

And so, despite midterms, a (different) play in two weeks, an away meet on Friday, and a home meet next week, I cut and casted it for them.

They owe me.



* A comment that totally made going to Dracula Monday night worthwhile, since I'm positive her respect for dramatic theater comes directly out of her enjoyment of that show.

Out Tonight

On Sunday afternoon I met some of my students at the lightrail station by me. We rode together to the DCTC to see Stories on Stage - a monthly series of the company's actors reading short stories on various themes. The first story, a Bill Bryson one, was well-read and well-written. The second one was far too long and poorly structured. The third was fine, but not particularly fantastic. The cookies and milk following the show were delicious. The average age of the audience was 70. The consensus among my students was that the outing was fun, but the show was "eh."

On Monday evening I met a different group of students at the theater to buy student rush tickets to Dracula. Another reason to love DCTC? They extend their student rush discount to drama teachers.

The show was, perhaps, a B. I'm not a fan of the writer, Charles Morey, and the show was about 45 minutes too long. The actors did a fine job, though, and the tech work was fantastic. There were a lot of fun "spooky" effects and a nifty simplistic set design. Most of all, the students loved it and came to school today telling everyone to go see it. Many others are going to go this weekend.

Worth the lack of sleep? Perhaps. I enjoy watching the drama bug spread.

A Reckoning

Now we are 31.

My celebration:

• I called an end to speech practice at 3:15 and got home by 5!
• I'm going to bed after I post this so I might actually get 8 hours of sleep!
• (Don't mock me - I'm really excited about this.)
• A joint-birthday dinner with Miranda and co. on Thursday, cooked by Rachel
  

What I received:

• One of my freshmen girls brought me brownies, which brought my Drama class much joy.
• One of my speech boys brought me a batch of peanut butter cookies, which brought my speechers much joy.
• One of my speech seniors told me she made me cookies then left them on the counter at home but assured me they were delicious, which brought me much joy.
  
• Many students sang to me and wished me well.
• Several sent messages via text/my whiteboard.
• A phone call from my brother
  
• A sparkly-striped scarf from Paula, my assistant coach
  
• Some Philosophy products, stamping supplies, and a Paris guidebook from my parents (and their safe return home from Chicago, also good)
  
• A dragonfly umbrella and a butterfly luggage tag from Cedes
• A book about the wisdom of children's books from Emily
• A check from my grandparents

My accomplishments this past year:

Read: 83 Books (about 1.5 books per week)
Saw: 25 Plays/Operas, 25 movies (check out that symmetry!)
Plays Produced: 7
Blog Posts: 203
Traveled: Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Seattle, New York City, Thailand, Chicago, Salt Lake, Cedar City, and a whole lotta speech meets and trips up and down the mountain
Appearances in newspapers: 3
Radio interviews: 2
Performances of play that I co-wrote: 4
State championships: 1
"New" cars: 1

Not bad at all. Bring it on, 31! What've you got for me this year?

Pick a Pocket or Two

At first, my students were shocked at the idea of charging admission to shows.

We had a talk about it back in August - I wanted to charge people for tickets to the class productions, $2 or $3, for example. The students protested vehemently - "No one will come!" "No one wants to pay to see our shows!" "We've never charged people before!"

And there lies the crux of the issue. I was surprised last year when I first heard that the teacher before me didn't charge admission. I couldn't figure out how she stayed in the black, given all of the expenses putting on even a basic show accrues. Then I looked over her budget records and discovered that she did it by not paying royalties and by copying the scripts on the school's machine.

Ah.

Well, that was going to stop. I didn't tell the students about my discovery, but I did tell them that if people get something for free, they respect it less than if they have to pay for it.

They didn't believe me.

We came up with a compromise - a mandatory donation, of sorts. I and a student helper sat at the door Thursday night and, as people came in, we asked them to "Pay what you choose, but do pay something."

One kid paid with a paperclip. It was all he had on him.

One gentleman handed me a $20 and refused change, telling me to put it towards the drama program.

I'd guess the average was $3 a person in the end - about what I expected.

When I shut down the ticket table 10 minutes into the show, I counted up the money. For an audience of about 80 people, we had taken in $181. I had spent about $60 on props for the show, so that gave us a profit of $121. The students who didn't appear in Act 2 were standing at the back of the theater, leaning on the half-wall at the back of the "booth" to watch the show. I showed them the sticky note with the totals written on it. (I believe in transparency with this kind of thing - they need to know about the business of theater as much as the art.) They were astounded.

And it might have gone to their heads a little. After the show, they, per tradition, ran back around to the lobby to greet their audience. I powered down and locked up the sound and light systems, then followed them to the lobby. There I found my little cast of 9, swaying with arms draped across each others' shoulders, swinging a rousing rendition of "Old MacDonald" while Jack passed Dr. Chasuble's parson hat around the crowd for "tips and donations." When they ran out of lyrics, they broke into improv games, determined to entertain the crowd for more money.

We'll have a talk tomorrow about decorum and such.

It was a success, though. Thursday night was a little precarious with one actor who failed to show up altogether. He had been flaky in the (albeit optional) after-school rehearsals, so the actors already knew how to carry on without him, unfortunately (it was Lord Bracknell, a part I created for the class. He didn't have any lines, but he did have some blocking and some interactions with Lady Bracknell that cued other things in the show).

The next morning, as we warmed up for the in-school performance, one of the girls told me with a worried look, "Don't get too mad at Zack".

"Why not?" I asked, wondering if she had heard something I hadn't.

"We just don't know why he didn't show. Maybe something bad happened. You should listen to him before you yell at him."

"Oh, Ms. W- doesn't yell," Kalen said solemnly, "She plays mindgames with you."

Reassured that the class was looking out for each other and wouldn't punish Zack socially without hearing him out first (and also beaming inwardly at their perception of my classroom management), I nodded my assent to 'play it cool.'

Sure enough, five minutes before we opened house and 25 minutes past call, Zack strolled down the aisle of the auditorium, grinning and waving at all of us.

"You're late, Zack," I said, calmly.

"Am I?" he said, with a rather goofy look.

"Yes," I said, letting a bit more iciness into my tone. "You've got five minutes to get into costume. Skedaddle."

To his credit, he picked up speed and headed for the costume room. He reemerged a few minutes later, interrupting the last of our warm-ups to tell me he couldn't find his jacket. "I'm sorry to hear that, but it's not my problem," I responded, then turned back to the cast to finish what we were doing. He found his jacket.

Later, when we opened house, I was mending a hat in the prop room when I heard a conversation just outside the door.

"Zack, man, where were you last night?"

I could hear the shrug in his response: "Home."

"Why? Why didn't you show up for the play? I could have given you a ride."

"I didn't feel like coming."

"Well, that's pretty shitty man," the student said, with a surprising amount of compassion in his tone.

And, indeed, it is.

The in-school performance took place during the class period. I had emailed the faculty inviting them a few weeks ago and asking them to RSVP. About 5 teachers had, which would have given us a decent audience. I think a lot of teachers threw in the towel, though, between it being Friday and the week before mid-term exams, because the classes just kept coming and coming. I had to get up on stage and ask people to move to the middle/walls to open up aisle seats, and several teachers grabbed chairs from the band room to line the back wall. The house was packed.

The kids did fine. Zach (other Zach) stole the show, as I expected, with his appearance and smoker's voice as Mariah the maid. He was originally Lane the Butler, and I had switched Merriman's (the other butler) gender to create a dumb-show love-triangle for between acts. When the girl playing Mariah/Merriman was suspended for two weeks for selling drugs, I asked Zach to take on the part. I had suggested making Merriman Lane's evil twin (with a mustache, of course), but that was before Zach found the French maid outfit in our costume shop. A guy in drag is such an easy gag, but, as my dad quotes, no one has ever gone broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

Half of the kids told me post-show how they couldn't wait for their next production (Macbeth), while the other half just wanted to keep doing Earnest. The freshman who saw the show declared in the Intro to Drama class later that day that seeing the show just made them more nervous about their own production in three weeks.

"That's great!" I said to all of those comments.

And it is.

Another Wedding Song

Scene: 7:15 AM Friday morning. I am leading my small cast in warm-ups for their performance of "Importance of Being Earnest" for classes during first period. The students are chatting eagerly, despite my attempts to get them to focus, thanks to pre-show nerves.

Me: Roll your neck around slowly, working out any kinks or stiffness you find...

Molly: Last night's show was so much fun! Zach, you were hilarious.

Bri: I'm so nervous! I'm more nervous about today's show than last nights.

Cody: Yeah.

Me: And, keeping your hips facing forward, twist your shoulders back to stretch your spine...

Sean: Ms. Waterhouse, can we come to the wedding?

Me: See if you can turn- Wait, what? I twist back around to face him. What wedding?

Sean: Your wedding.

Me: I'm not getting married.

Kalen: No, but when you do. Will you invite us?

Me: But I'm not getting married.

Shelby: But don't you want us to come?

Cody: We want to be there!

Me: Guys, I'm not getting married. There's a few steps in-between. Counting off on fingers. Boyfriend, fiance, then wedding!

Zach: What about Jason?

Me: 11 years. Not going to happen.

Sean: You get us a picture and we'll write the profile. We'll get you hooked up.

Kyle: Match.com!

Sean: Just leave it to us.

Molly: We want to be there! Won't you remember us in a few years?

Me: Oh, come on. You'll all be old and married by then with your own kids. You won't even remember my name, let alone want to be at my wedding.

Students: (In chorus) Yeah, we will!

Molly's Mom: Sticking her head out of the dressing room where she's been doing the girls' hair, and raising her hand I'm 51 years old and I still remember my favorite teacher, my high school drama and speech teacher. She disappears back into the dressing room.

Me: (Yelling after her feebly) But I bet you didn't go to his or her wedding!

Kalen: Ms. W-, what we're saying is that you make an impact. We'll remember you.

Me: Immensely touched, so I quickly change the subject by checking the time on my phone. 8 minutes until the classes start arriving, guys. Let's wrap up the warm ups and cheer.




P.S. "Awww!", right?
P.P.S. I swear we don't spend all of class time talking about my dating life. This class just seems particularly interested in it for some reason, and the conversations are too amusing to keep to myself.
P.P.P.S. The shows went great. I'll tell you more details later this weekend.
P.P.P.P.S. I'm off to bed. MY bed. BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A SPEECH MEET TOMORROW! Yay!! (Crazy-Kermit arms)

A Touch of Class

I don't think I've told you much about my classes this term. So, here's a brief update/summary:

Period 1: Advanced Drama

I technically have 13 students on my roster, although two are currently on extended suspension (due to being caught selling meth in the bathroom and vodka in water bottles. They are not the brightest Crayons in the box, these two) and one ran away from home about three weeks ago.

So, my intrepid nine and I are putting the finishing touches on "Earnest." We'll do an evening show on Thursday and an in-class show on Friday. The students are almost memorized, but they have won a special place in my heart by requesting after-school rehearsals all week. They don't get all of the jokes, but by golly they want to do a good job telling them. We ran the show twice today after school, once at "normal" speed (70:43) and once at "double-time" (46:21). Three students didn't show, so I took on the parts of Lane, Merriman, Chasuble, and all the techie work as my faithful six rehearsed and had a grand time.

They're a small and a rag-tag bunch, but I like 'em.

Period 2 - Consultation

I get a lot done.

Period 3 - Intro to Drama

Aside from a few misfits, this class is sharp, literate, and extraordinarily enthusiastic. I love working with them, and they're coming up with great gags that actually fit the show well. This class is doing "The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood" (yes, I'm still recycling shows). The show goes up the first weekend in November, and we've just finished blocking Act 1. Due to the set for "Earnest" being up on stage and the aforementioned snowstorm, I decided we should remain in the classroom today instead of trekking across the parking lot to the other building. So instead of blocking more of Act 2, we practiced the choreography for "Men in Tights" (for bows) and started watching the Disney version of the story. Man, I loved that movie as a kid. And, not at all to my surprise, I still love it. The music is awesome, the characters are funny, and how sexy is this guy?


Rar!

Also? I realized something:


Totally.

Oh, funny story: I did a little meditation session with this class a few days ago. Another teacher nabbed me in the hall the next day to say that she had gotten a phone call from a parent of one of the kids in my class. Neither of us was clear on why the parent had called that teacher, but the mom was quite concerned that I was preaching 'Middle Eastern' religions in my class, 'especially when we're at war with that country.'

But, seriously. Great group of kids and I love working with them.

Period 4: Speech

Ah, speech. This class doesn't have it's stand-out leaders like last year's did, but I don't need them as much as I did last year, either. I know what I'm doing now and that makes things a heck of a lot easier. That being said, this class is one with some very strong, very easily-distracted personalities. Every day is a fight for their attention. However, it's certainly no worse than what I had teaching middle school. I'm used to handling them, but it's unusual in high school. There are a lot of freshmen in the class, and immature ones at that. Happily, they're also a talented bunch and there's some real potential for the team in the future.

They're working on Duet Acting right now, which basically means they're doing two-person scenes. I let them have most of the period to work today, but called them back together for the last 20 minutes of class to mix up the scenes - I'd call up two people who weren't working together and they would each say their lines in order, but with two totally different scenes happening. It's a fun exercise, since inevitably you get some lines that somehow make sense.


Really, I've got good class this year. I am absolutely loving not teaching English. When I did my year at STMS, I was heartsick for the lack of Theater; so I wondered how it would be in reverse. I don't miss it at all. I'm still talking about literature and writing with my drama and speech classes, but I'm not trying to find time to grade essays or teach grammar (well, at least not at school I'm not) on top of prepping two shows and coaching speech. It's a good thing, really.

Public Answers

To address my sister's comment:

- Yes! You can come to the reading. You can all come to the reading! It's on Sunday, though, so you have to face some Mormon guilt. But! It also means we can still go shopping on Saturday. And it would be nice if said shopping including a run down south so I can gets me some more garments.

-I don't know if the kids were inspired by seeing the show. I get little comments here and there ("They didn't use any microphones, did they Ms. Waterhouse?") that tell me a) they paid attention to some of the performance details and b) they're still thinking about it. But they're not at the place yet where those ideas can transfer into their performance. There's a big gap between seeing it and creating it. Sadly. But we're taking the first steps of getting there.

- I went to my old ward. I haven't woken up early enough to get to the family ward (9:00). Maybe this Sunday. And yes, maybe sleeping in is only part of the issue and I'm still dealing with the whole "I don't fit in anywhere now that I've flunked the singles ward" feeling.

-What kind of mountain kid doesn't pack his coat?
A 15-year-old boy. That's who. :)

And now my question:
When do I get to see my nephew again? Could I babysit him on Friday?

P.S. The rainstorm I drove to work in became a snowstorm during 2nd period today. Which, of course, put one of my favorite poems running through my mind the rest of the day:

Undivided attention
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps - like classical music's
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.

It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers' crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares
and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging like the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I'm trying to teach math in the building across the street.

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.
Like snow.

See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.

So please.

Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers' crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.

Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

Oh, Taylor Mali. I do love your poetry.

Steppin' Out

Oy, what a week!

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday:
I stayed late after school each day earlier in the week working with the speechers. Although having a larger team (48 kids) does help us win more awards, it becomes a lot more difficult to coach each student. Unlike other sports, it's not a group thing - I can't line up all the duet acting scenes and shout "Okay, go!" I like taking the time to work one-on-one to refine a piece, but it takes a lot of time.

Thursday
I cut rehearsals short at 4:00, changed into my va-va-voom dress in the teacher's restroom, and headed downtown for 39 Steps. The kids were excited, talking about the show all week. I actually had a phone call from a parent who had left the directions to the theater at home and was calling in a panic because she "didn't remember how to get there" and she "wasn't going to miss this!" because she's "50 years old and has never seen a play before in her life."

That's another thing they didn't teach me in college - how I often wind up educating the community as much as I do the students.

The show was great, the kids loved it, and they behaved perfectly. In fact, there was another school group there seeing another show. That group was in t-shirts and jeans, had stragglers sneaking off to the side smoking, and a few were literally hanging off the sculptures in the courtyard. My students were dressed up for the theater and spent the time before the show chatting quietly and taking pictures of themselves in their fancy clothes (remember doing that, Rachel?). I was proud of them.

Happily, all of the groups made it safely to and from the theater, too. One senior, Matt, volunteered to drive a bunch of student down in his family minivan. They called at one point to ask, and I quote, "Are we going the right way on Highway 6?" Which demonstrates their belief in my divine omniscience as much as the students who called me to say, "We're in a parking garage. Which way do we go now?" I checked my cell phone obsessively until the minivan o' students showed up safely. Their tales the next day of their decision to go find a Village Inn after the show for dessert and subsequent loss of direction "in the ghetto" gave me retrospective palpitations. I'm too young to be worrying on this level of mom-ness, aren't I?

The talk-back with the actors went splendidly. The actors/crew were terribly gracious, my students asked good questions, and the parents in the room seemed quite happy about the extensive encouragement for college educations. It added so much to the kids' experience to get that special attention from the company, and when Mr. Nagel posed with us for a group photo after the show, many student declared him their favorite actor ever.

All of that is why I'm working on arranging another group trip to the DCTC for this weekend to see a reading.

Friday and Saturday
Working on minimal sleep by that point, I somehow managed the make it through another overnight speech meet. I, two chaperones, and 28 students hopped on the bus after school and drove the twisty, windy, motion-sickness-inducing mountain road to Silverthrone. I turned the kids loose for two hours to get dinner and enjoy the outlet stores (which prompted one kid to raise his hand and say, "Thank you for the extra time!" Seriously - when a statement like that makes me all farklempt, perhaps I'm feeling underappreciated.) While the kids relished the retail (remember, they're Mountain Town kids - stores are a big deal to them), the chaperones and I had a leisurely dinner at the Chinese restaurant near the bus.

We got to the hotel a little after 7. After a little mix-up with the reservations, I handed out the room keys and gave the kids until 10:00 to swim and rehearse their speech pieces. Despite the fact that 1) the pool was outdoors and 2) it was currently snowing, they all rushed into their suits and jumped in. By 8:30, we had taken over the lobby and the sound of various short stories, snippets of theater, and impromptu speeches filled the area.

The hotel staff was very nice, considering. They not only let us use their lobby like that, but the manager asked me if the kids would enjoy "some goodies". He came out of the back room with four grocery bags filled with free samples of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, makeup remover, and razors. As I handed them out, the kids declared it "the best hotel ever!" And that was before they discovered the waffle-maker at breakfast.

True to our word, we taped the kids in at 10:00 and I settled in for a restless few hours of sleep. We headed off for the meet at 6:45 the next morning. I spent the meet working the judges' table, so I scheduled the judges for each round, checked off their ballots as they came back, and generally ran crisis-management. I took a lot of notes for my own meet (three weeks! Eek!).

There were some slimy things going on by the host school which hurt some of my kids, but we didn't do so badly overall - 15 ribbons and Best of Event in three events. We were back on the road by 6:00, stopped for a fast-food dinner in Frisco, and made it home through the fog, the snow, and the windy, twisty road. I gave my coat to the one kid whose parents weren't at the school when we arrived and we waited together in the bitter wind for about 20 minutes. Finally, I got to go home myself, where I promptly crawled into bed.

Sunday
I woke up at 8, went to church, fell asleep in sacrament meeting three times, then went back home to bed for a two-hour nap.

Monday
My Advanced Drama class called for emergency rehearsals after school to get their play together for the show on Thursday. It's nice that they care that much. I did a Goodwill run when I got down the mountain to hunt down a few props. Now I'm catching up on TV from last week, i.e. The Office. Which prompts conflicting feelings of "Squee! Sweeney Todd! References to Sondheim on TV! Squee!" and "No, the runtime is more like 2:45, not 1:45. And how is it 10:10 in the first act of the show according to Ryan's iPad? That doesn't make any sense!" and the general squeamishness of Michael (in a theatrical setting no less). Still, Sondheim! And good for Ed Helms singing "Johanna"!

I Wish I Could Go Back to College

Topics my Theater Education class in college should have covered but didn't:

- Butcher Paper, Staples, and Coat Hangers, Oh My!: Building a $20 Set Without a Woodshop

- So Sayeth the Shepherd!: Literary Classics and What Parents Will Hate About Them

- OSS, ISS, Flu, and Family Vacations: How to Rehearse When Half Your Class is Missing The Week Before Your Show

- "Can't I Just Cover Her Mouth With My Hand?": Coaching Students Through a First Kiss While the Entire Class Watches

- "Too Gay For You, Too Hetro' For Me": Helping Teenage Boys Confront the Closet

- To Dream the Impossible Dream: Well-Written Plays with More Than 30 Parts (With a bonus bibliography of plays with more female parts than male!)

- "I'm so excited about the show on Thursday! I've never see a live play before.": Why Field Trips are Worth the Paperwork

Question and Answer

What happens when you give your cell phone number to students on a field trip...

If You Win You Lose

We not only survived the first meet of the season, we came home with 26 ribbons, 7 of which were "Best of Event" (i.e. 1st place). So, whoo!

Happily, the hotel stay/transportation of 8 freshmen away from their parents for the first time ever also went well. Just one phone call from the management about the noise around 9:00. We moved everyone from practicing in the hallway to practicing in the lobby, and all was well. We taped the kids in at 10:00, the Team Mom (who's not me) did a round of the hallway around midnight and the two freshmen rooms were the only ones still awake talking.

The judging was all over the place. The host coach lets seniors judge at this meet (being a novice meet), which tends to create some real wild cards in the results. The students perform their pieces just once in front of three judges (as opposed to performing three times in front of one judge each time). I had one kid who, on his three ballots, received a 1/49, a 1/50, and a 4/42 (the first number is the rank from 1-4, the second is the speaker points ((which go from 31-50))). Like I said, all over the place.

The funniest ballot comment was, of course, from a student judge:

3 words for you:
L.M.A.O.!

Last year, I discovered that 1) They had discontinued team points; that is, they no longer tallied what school won each meet and 2) Ruth continued to tally that on her own and announced it to her students as if it were still happening universally.

The students kept asking me how the team did overall, so after two meets I asked Ruth what they were talking about. She showed me how to calculate team points and I spent the awards part of each meet frantically tracking every ribbon for every school so I could do the math on the bus ride home to figure out the overall place.

On one hand, it was nice - my principal, the newspaper, and others all understood "We took first!" a lot more than "We got 26 ribbons overall!"

On the other hand, I hated seeing how disappointed the kids were when they got anything less than first. I'm such a non-jock, but I'm working in a scenario where the idea of performing for the sake of the performance (as opposed to an award from judges who hardly ever know what they're doing) is as foreign to them as the idea of performance-as-competition is to me. Plus, I felt bad knowing that the other coaches had decided to abandon team points, so our continuing to rank each school's totals is rather unfair of me.

So I made a decision for this year, and when the students asked "How did we do overall?" as they got on the bus, I said, "Oh! Actually, they've stopped doing team points. Weird, huh?"

They were disappointed, sure, but no one threw a fit (unlike last year). Within a few meets, it should be forgotten at least until State.

I might miss the bragging point, but I'd chalk this up as a win for artistry over sportsmanship.

Next week: Battle Mountain!

Jeannie's Packing Up

Tomorrow we leave for the first speech meet of the season. It's an overnighter with 36 kids. Here's my packing list as coach:

- 1 list of names
- 4 Copies of hotel room assignments
- 1 stack of emergency release/insurance cards
- 1 file folder of behavior contracts
- 3 notepads
- 1 set Post-Its
- 10 pencils
- 10 pens
- 5 stopwatches
- 1 bag of medications released by the school nurse to carry for students
- 6 granola bars
- 10 fruit snackpacks
- 1 travel first aid kit
- 1 box of Tampons (assorted sizes)
- 1 set of emergency pantyhose
- Printed directions to the hotel and host school
- 2 checks (to the hotel/host school)
- My personal overnight bag & purse (with contents)
- My DS
- My Kindle
- My Laptop
- My notes for corrections to "Making Waves"
- My motion-sickness bracelet
- 2 Rolls masking tape

Why the masking tape, you may ask? I fully credit Ruth for this stroke of chaperoning genius:
At the appointed hour, the other chaperons and I make the rounds. We check each room to make sure the assigned students are in there (and no one else!). Once the room is approved, we bid them good night, shut the door, then place three pieces of masking tape scross the door's seam (top, handle, and bottom).

The students know that
1) We will untape them at the designated hour in the morning (usually 6:00)
2) We will be making rounds during the night to check the tape
3) If the tape is found broken, the entire room gets in trouble with me/their parents/the administration and are banned from further overnight meets.

See, it is impossible for someone to exit the room without the tape being broken. Even if they manage to open the door in a way that doesn't tear the tape, it is impossible for that person to get back into the room and reattach the tape from the inside.

Brilliant, I say!

As for the windows, well, I request rooms that are not on the first floor. If the hotel only has one floor, well, the kids currently believe that I tape the windows, too (and don't you dare tell them otherwise!).

Wish us luck!

High Hat

My awesome pere recently took up the cause of costuming my student for their upcoming production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Which is really very nice of him, since I have a working budget of, like, zero dollars.

In the last 24 hours, I've had a slew of packages arriving with such treats as top hats (including one that collapses!), a monocle, a necklace-magnifying glasses, and a padre hat. This is in addition to the awesome set of hats for the female characters and the smoking jackets for the men my dad got for us at a vintage store downtown when he came out to visit last weekend.


Dr. Chasuble, I presume?


Jack and Algy in smoking jackets and top hats. Despite the evidence to the contrary, we've had many discussions about how you actually wear pants with smoking jackets. Algy is similarly stubborn about wanting to carry a briefcase around. I might lose that battle.


But the best package of all was one that I just can't justify putting into the show.

I mean, is there really any reason why Algernon would have a headless butler?



Any reason at all?



Oh, come on. You know me better than that. I'm not one to sacrifice the integrity of a show for one joke.



And I've explained this to my students over and over again.

But then they came up with this idea that I kinda love -

At the end of the show, as the audience exits the theatre, they want there to be a tombstone with "R.I.P. Bunbury" on it.

And standing next to the tombstone?

Our headless butler.



Thank you, Dad, for getting my students really excited about doing this play!

Downtown

My awesome Friday morning started when I saw this comment via email.

Dude. Am I right? Dude!

So, as soon as I got to school, I booted up my computer and fired off an email to my new favorite actor clarifying that we were actually seeing the show in two weeks and yes, yes, yes! we are interested. (He wrote back, by the way, and we're setting it all up for the later date and the cast is all on board).

And so began the rekindling of my love of the DCTC.

Amid the fury of sending an email, answering all kinds of questions, collecting speech contracts and money for the hotel for this week's meet, and getting the room set up for a sub, one of my Advanced Drama kiddos announced that he had a couch in the back of his truck for our production of "Earnest". Hurrah! It's missing its cushions, but still! Free couch! Hurrah!

(Side note: Today's conversation in class -

Me: Let's head over to the theater to rehearse and to see if any critters crawled out from our new couch over the weekend.
Kalen: It was covered in frost. That'll kill any critters that might have been in it.
Bri: Critters?
Me: Yeah, but you never know. Plus, the moisture could be an issue.
Bri: Critters?!
Kalen: Nah, it'll be fine.
Bri: CRITTERS?! What kind of critters?
Me: You know... bugs...
Kalen: Mice...
Me: Giraffes....
Cody: Giraffes would be awesome.)

So, I dropped off the failing kids in the main office for the period, opened up the theater to drop the couch off, and we headed off on the short bus to downtown Denver!

We arrived about 20 minutes before our appointed time, so after some discussion with the bus driver over where to park a bus in downtown Denver on a weekday, I led my kids up a few blocks to the nearest Starbucks. Once they had drinks in hand (and three minutes to chug them), we went back to the National Theater Conservatory building to meet David, our guide for the day.

David introduced us to Jessica, one of the resident actors/educators. Jessica led my students through an hour-long workshop. By my request, she focused on character development. To my delight, when I mentioned to her that my students were working on "The Importance of Being Earnest," she quickly made that a part of the workshop. She exclaimed with delight over their doing the show, then asked "Who's Chausible? Who's Cecily?" and so on until every student had a chance to share their part. She then started working with them on it, going around to each person and having them name an adjective for their character, then helping them build a pose/expression around that. It was wonderfully specific, and I loved watching my students suddenly realize that "Hey, this is a famous show! Other people know and love it!"

When David came to fetch us at the end of the hour, the students groaned with disappointment over having the workshop end. Jessica bade us farewell, and David started telling us about what we'd be seeing.

He did a great job as tour guide, joking with the kids, building immediate rapport, and saying just the right things to make them feel like extraordinarily special guests. He led us through the scenery shops (wood, metal, paint, design), the costume room (where the costumers were all quite busy getting everything done for the show opening this week), the costume storage area, the shoe room, the prop shop, and the lighting designer's office. The kids were great - they were respectful, totally into it, and asked great questions. David treated them like avid thespians, using all kinds of specific terms, letting them figure things out, and admonishing them to go to college and get at least a bachelor's degree ("Yay!" cried the former AVID teacher in me).

After the tour, we slipped into the technical rehearsal of Dracula. I was concerned that my students would get bored - after all, we spent an hour watching the actors work about 5 minutes worth of the play. They ran a few lines, stopped to fix a sound cue, ran the same lines again, stopped to talk about the blocking with the director, ran the lines again, stopped to adjust the placement of the coffin, ran lines... and so on.

I was excited - they were seeing so much! The difference in the volume of their voices when they're talking to the director vs. saying their lines, the way they always do the lines with the same level of emotion and focus no matter how many times they've said them already, the lighting effects they were playing with in the background, the step-by-step process for blocking a few basic moves in a fight scene. I kept looking at my students to see if they were paying attention. And they were! They were engrossed in it, and asked to stay a little bit longer to see them run the fight one more time.

During one of the mini-breaks, one of the techies pointed us out to the cast and crew, naming us as "special guests" and saying where we came from. Everyone turned to my kids and shouted "Hello!" and waved. Then the technical director for the show came up to where we were sitting and asked "What do you love to do?"

"Act?" Molly said, uncertain if that was the right answer. I pointed out my techie at the end of the row, and the technical director went over and spent about five minutes talking to her and the others. He asked about their plans, their theater experience, and encouraged them to go to college ("Yay!"), look into particular programs, keep doing theater. My techie told him she wanted to do what he's doing for a living, and he told her to go for it.

Just before they broke for lunch, we snuck out the back. David took us to two other theaters in the complex, showing the students a theater-in-the-round and a more traditional, albeit tiny, proscenium stage (where they're performing 39 Steps, so some of the students will get to see it in action next week) (the space where Dracula is being performed is a modified thrust stage). He encouraged them to take advantage of the student rush tickets (something I've been plugging for months), answered questions about the summer and weekend classes for teenagers, and bade us a fond farewell.

In short, my students got to see live and in use everything I've been teaching them in class. It was huge, and I so love that the DCTC recognizes the importance of this (for us and for them) enough that the tour was completely free of charge. I definitely want to make this a tradition for my classes, and I hope to build a strong relationship with the DCTC myself.

We walked outside and, after a very exciting spotting of one of the actors on the street ("It's Dracula! Look, it's Dracula!"), I led my students up to the 16th Street Mall. There, in a fit of bravery that I so wouldn't have done a year ago, I said, pointing, "McDonald's is that way a few blocks, Goodtimes is over there, I'll be in Tokyo Joe's, meet me here until the clocktower in 40 minutes. You have my cell phone number - call if you need help or get lost. Otherwise, be safe, be smart, and have fun."

And they were off. I enjoyed a quick salad at Tokyo Joe's and browsed the street fair a little before meeting up with my kids. Two were late, but they called me at exactly the appointed time to say that McDonalds was just making their food now and they'd be there asap. And they were.

We walked back (while I discouraged Zack from asking our workshop leader, Jessica, to Homecoming; declined to follow Sean's plan for me to hit on the Budweiser truck driver while they stole some beer; and agreed with them that yes, David was very cute and charming, but he also had a wedding ring on and therefore I was not going to ask him to Homecoming), met the bus, and arrived back at the school around 3:30.

It was, in short, everything I'd hoped it would be. I asked them on the way down how many had seen a show there before. Of the 9 on the trip, 1. ONE of them had seen a show at the DCTC, and that was just one show several years ago.

I asked how many had been downtown. Only a couple raised their hands.

While we were walking up to Starbucks in the morning, one of them looked at my face and said, "Ms. Waterhouse, you look really happy."

"I am," I said. "I love this city!"

And I do.

Happiness is...

...getting to spend Sunday night with Rachel, Ben, and Jack. They're a fun bunch to be around.

Also? Happiness is a field trip done well, which I'll tell you all about tomorrow night (hopefully). For now, I'm going to do a load of laundry so I have clothes for the week and then get myself off to bed.

Standing on a Corner

Whew!

Well, tonight's conferences kept me hopping!

My desk is still covered in papers, although I did make tidier stacks for the sake of my half-day sub.

Right after my last class, I grabbed the food from my office desk (hidden from the chillen's) and took it down to the main office for the faculty. I made Peanut Butter-Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats, Fruity Pebbles Treats, and had an array of fruit for the healthy types at the school. All were a hit.

I allowed myself ten minutes to hang out with adults before abandoning the conversations to go back upstairs and do some Speech Coaching. I worked with students until about 4:30, stopping twice for conferences. After another conference, I grabbed some dinner at the cafeteria and then held a Speech Parents meeting to address all of the questions and mysteries for the parents new to speech. Following that, I had back-to-back conferences straight through to 8:00. Good, since the parents were all very nice and complimentary (apparently I'm a popular dinner conversation topic around Mountain Town) and I talked two girls into trying speech out this year (which brings the total number of kids on the team/class to 47). Bad, since I had all kinds of plans for things to do today.

So, I stayed an extra half hour to type up sub plans for tomorrow and am now hunting around on Google Maps for places for me and my kids to eat tomorrow. Many of them have never been downtown before, so I planned some extra time for us to grab a bite there. If traffic behaves, we'll have about 45 minutes before we need to be at the theater, so I'm thinking we walk over to Market Street/Writer's Square for breakfast of some kind. Then, after the stuff, we'll walk a few blocks up to the 16th Street Mall for lunch. I was worried that the restaurants would be too pricey/sit-downy for my kiddos to grab a quick bite, but there's a McDonalds, a Goodtimes, a Tokyo Joe's, and a Paradise Cafe there, so we should be good.

I'll still have to get to school on the early side tomorrow. I have a few students who are coming by in the morning to drop things off for Speech, and I still need to put together some work packets for the boys who are staying behind due to grades. If I leave the condo by 6:30, I should be in good shape. Unfortunately, I tend to get to school later than I should for being only 10 minutes away. The lure of sleeping just a bit longer is intensified by knowing how close I am, I suppose. Shame on me. I'll try to get everything shut down and packed up in the morning so I can go straight home after the field trip. If I don't, though, I'll be back up here Saturday for Homecoming, so there's still that.

Wish me luck tomorrow for my first official MTHS field trip (not counting speech meets)!

Every Day a Little Death

I'm in my classroom right now, just starting hour 2 of the 10 hours of Parent-Teacher Conferences to come in the next 28 hours.

I'm guessing this round will be the annoying ones - the conferences that come in spurts just far enough apart to keep me from getting anything done (like cleaning my work area - I didn't set up a filing system when I changed classrooms, so since then the papers have just been languishing in piles. When I filled up my desk with papers, I added an extension by pulling a student desk over. There's now three students desks attached to mine, filled with papers).

And since I don't like to file unless I can sit down for two or three hours and create folders and color-coded tabs to my heart's content, I am choosing to blog instead.

Topic #1:
Death keeps coming up. So many friends and students are dealing with death in various forms lately that on one hand my prayers are full of names and my heart just aches for them, while on the other hand I'm terrified that at any moment death will slip through that bubble film between these people and the ones I hold closest to me - that next it will be one of my family or my close friends who's coping with brain cancer or bone cancer or leukemia or suicide or an eating disorder or a car accident. It's brushing against me now, and my muscles are tense, in a constant flinch, waiting for it to move in closer.

Topic #2:
It's foggy and raining right now. Last year at this time we had snow. I prefer this.

Topic #3:
With Conferences going until 8:00 each night, I'm staying at the condo until Friday. I'm sad to leave my cat alone for three days, but I'm really excited to get to sleep in until 6:00.

Topic #4:
One of my goals this year is to get my students to see more professional shows. I've really noticed a difference in their performances between them and my DPJH kids. Despite being younger, my DPJH kids were definitely better on stage than these MTHS kids. After last year, I concluded that it came from exposure to "real" theater.

The MTHS kids are quite isolated, as you may expect from a "Mountain Town". A few have been to Denver to see a play. Some have gone to the local community theater. Some have seen the past shows at the high school.

And here I come in talking about cheating out and telling the audience the story and asides and minimalist sets and they just stare at me blankly because they have absolutely no idea what any of that looks like. All they know is it doesn't look like what they know and therefore = bad & scary.

So I'm taking my Advanced Drama class to the DCTC Friday to let them go on a tour of the theater, do a workshop with an actor, and watch a technical rehearsal. It's a small class, so we're taking baby steps.

I also arranged group tickets to an evening performance of The 39 Steps at DCTC in a few weeks. The student matinees were sold out weeks ago, but in a stroke of genius the DCTC does shows on week days starting at 6:30. 6:30! That means that even with the hour-long drive back up to Mountain Town, my students will be home by 9:30!

So I hung up a sign-up list, told the kids they had to get their own rides (I'll meet them there), and invited all of my students to attend. 35 signed up. Which is, honestly, more than I expected. I'm thrilled for them to see the show and so excited to see if what comes out of it, performance-wise. If it works, I'll have to work on arranging a lot more side-trips like this.

Topic #5:
I'm still mad about the rules for acting in Speech that say that 1) the actor(s) cannot change characters and 2) it must come from a published (i.e. text) source. Alas for the loss of Mary Zimmerman's works and Rowan Atkinson's sketches!

Topic #6: DUDE! While looking for a link for that last sentence, I discovered a video for "Lookingglass Alice". Kelley! Jason! - the chairs! The Caterpillar! The White Knight!

Oh, how I love Lookingglass Theatre! Let me count the ways:



Topic #7:
They brought in boxed dinners from Qdoba for the teachers. So that wasn't too bad.

Topic #8:
I want to create theater like Mary Zimmerman and the Lookingglass Theater. I doubt I can do it here at MTHS.

Topic #9:
I like speech better now that I know what I'm doing. However, I still fiercely disagree with the competitive philosophy.

Topic #10:
This is not the first time Conferences have coincided with Spirit Week. I am glad that Decade Wars were yesterday, since I imagine the parents would have been a lot more mystified by my mid-1800's dress. Still, today being Superhero/Villain Day, I am wearing black head to toe with heavy eye makeup and a lot of scarves. I had a beret on too, but removed it in the heat of my classroom, so instead I'm sporting awesome hat hair. I created the outfit mostly based on the feel of a good villain, without a specific one in mind. It quickly became clear, though, that today would hold a series of people asking, "So, who are you?"

So, I've been telling people I'm the evil Drama version of Miss Viola Swamp. Sadly, very few know the reference.

Topic #11:
Most of my conferences today have been reassuring parents about the overnight hotel trips for speech meets. As one mother just put it, "He's just too excited about this." I nod in sympathy, explain with confidence and authority, and then leave the choice completely up to them. Ha, ha!

Topic #12:
It's now 7:15. 45 minutes to go. So, I'll post this now and see you all tomorrow.

On the Twentieth Century

This is quite the week at school:
- Parent/Teacher conferences (Wednesday and Thursday, from 3-8)
- Homecoming Game/Parade/Dance on Saturday
- Spirit Week (=dress up!)
- A formal observation of my teaching by my principal
- The official start of after-school speech practices
- A speech team parent meeting on Thursday and
- and a field trip on Friday

Oh, and I'm also in charge of snacks for the faculty on Thursday.

I enjoy Spirit Week at school because it gives me an excuse to dress up. We're not allowed to wear costumes for Halloween, but in honor of the sports season? Mais oui!

Today was "Twin Day". The faculty was all supposed to dress alike, so we wore jeans and staff shirts. Boring.

Tomorrow is "Decade Day". The seniors get the 80s, the juniors the 60s/70s, the sophomores the 90s, and the freshmen get the 20s/30s. (The only thing weirder than the years I went to high school during being declared suitable for dress-up is the posters up for the middle school's dance: "Retro Dance! 70s, 80s, and 90s!" My friends, we have been declared retro.) Despite my rooting for the faculty claiming 1900/10s, the faculty settled on the 40s/50s. I have an outfit that could work for the 40s, but I think I'll dress up in my pioneer costume instead. They didn't specify which century the decade was from, after all.

Wednesday is Superhero/Villain Day, Thursday is Color Day (the teachers get orange, which is an improvement from last year's brown), and Friday is my field trip so I'm wearing normal teacher clothes.

Speaking of the field trip, I'm not inclined to plan another. After a lot of phone calls and running about getting various permissions and forms and so on, I finally booked my Advanced Drama class for a workshop, backstage tour, and viewing of a technical rehearsal at DCTC. It's a great opportunity, and I was excited. Then this morning the secretary informed me that students can't go if they're failing any classes. Which takes out 4 of my 13 students. Add in the other one who somehow forgot to tell me that she'd be gone all week on a family trip to Disneyland (how do you forget such a thing? Moreover, how do you go through the actions of filling out and returning a permission slip and not recall that you will be gone on that date?).

So, with half the kids not going, I'm trying to stay perked up for the thing that took me so long to put together. Oh, don't get me wrong - it'll be fantastic for the ones that are going. But it'll kill the group dynamic I've been working on, and the kids who aren't going were really the ones who needed such a thing, you know?

In other news, I had a lovely weekend hanging with the family. We enjoyed many of our favorite Denver restaurants, viewed the splendors of the King Tut touring exhibit at the DAM, and shopped a bit. It was a perfect way to spend my last free weekend for the next four months.

Like Father...

I fell asleep riding in the backseat during the carpool this morning, then snarked myself awake.

High Flying Adored

Scene: Advanced Drama class, first period. The students and teacher sit on the floor of a classroom with a stunning view of the aspen trees that just turned gold this weekend. The teacher holds a clipboard on which she's taking roll. The student to her left raises his hand.

Zachariah: Ms. Waterhouse, for check-in today can we ask who everyone wants to take to Homecoming?

Me: Sure, Zachariah. Start us off.

One by one the students check in, naming current boy/girl-friends, celebrities, or the occasional, blushing truthful confession. Then it's the teacher's turn.

Me: Hello! I'm Ms. Waterhouse. Today I feel accomplished. And I'm chaperoning Homecoming, so I won't be bringing a date.

Students: (Groan)

Molly: Why not? (Other teacher's name) brought her boyfriend last year to all the dances.

Students: Yeah! Who, Ms. Waterhouse? Come on!

Me: Fine. I suppose I'd bring my friend Jason.

Students: Whoo!

Sean: So are you bringing him?

Me: No. He lives in DC.

Sean: We can call him for you, Ms. Waterhouse. We'll ask him for you. Who's got a cell phone with reception here?

Cody: (Scoffs) That's so junior high! 'My teacher wants to know if you'd go to the dance with her.'

Sean: Would he say yes, Ms. Waterhouse?

Me: Given the price of plane tickets, probably not.

Kalen: What if we paid for his ticket?

Sean: Yeah! If we pooled our money and paid for his plane ticket, would you bring him to dance with you?

Me: (Re-directing) Okay, and that's us! Let's talk about the field trip next week....

That evening, Jason happens to call to discuss other matters and I relate his narrow brush with chaperoning duties. He enjoys the tale, and says that if they pay for it, he's game for a free trip to Denver.

The next day, same setting.

Me: Guess what? I talked to my friend Jason last night. He says if you pay for his plane ticket, he'll come to the dance.

Sean: If we do, will you make out with him?


And... scene.

In Our Lovely Deseret

Turns out that interview did become an article - they just bumped it to the Deseret News proper!


It seems email interviews are the way to go - my quotations are much more accurate and eloquent-sounding when I get to write them.

Click here for the full article, if you like.

See You in the Funny Papers

Given the press I was getting a year ago, the wording of this headline might not have been the best choice (warning - it's just a photo of the front page. They're not quite up to having the paper online in little Mountain Town).


Still, it's a decent article and I hope it will get me a little more street cred in the community.






I've been checking The Mormon Times, but it's been two weeks and there's still no sign of the article I was interviewed for before. Perhaps my answers weren't spiritual enough. They do, however, have an article on how to sneak healthy food into your family's meals, so at least there's that.

You Oughta Be in Pictures

I'm in GJ this evening. My parents and I drove back from Cedar City today, following a delightful quick weekend trip.

We arrived on Friday just before the last performance of "Waves". It was a good performance - I made a list as I watched of things I wanted to change. Most of them were items on my list already, so this was a nice confirmation of my thoughts from two weeks ago. The audience was incredibly nice - very positive comments, very enthusiastic about the show and its effects. So, yay!

For me, the joy was in the people who were kind enough to come see it - my parents, Andy and Jenn, Grandma Cook, Teresa and Nick, and Kelley all came to see it, and it means the world to me that they would come to see this thing I helped make.

It was also fun to see my new USF friends again, too. It was too quick, and I know I probably won't see them again, but they made for a wonderfully friendly "Welcome Home"-type of feeling.

Teresa, Nick, Kelley, and Grandma took off pretty quick, but I got to hang out with the rest of the family until Sunday morning. We went to the three Shakespeare plays (second viewings for me, but still enjoyable because 1) they're good shows and 2) I got to watch them with company and discuss afterwards), checked out a candy and nut store, and generally enjoyed each other's company.

Here's some pictures from the event, mostly courtesy mon pere:



The Auditorium Theater, where my show played:


The NAPP Plays


That's me!


Look! I'm an emerging playwright!


Naughty!


Diane, one of my hosts for the week:


These are the crane bookmarks I made for the cast and crew as thank-yous. Cute, huh?


We took the long way home so we could see Cedar Breaks:


And we stopped off in Thompson Springs to check out the petroglyphs:




P.S. Get this - twice people came up to me later that weekend to say how much they liked my show. I've got fans!

Isn't This Better?

A year ago I held my first speech team meeting.

The room was packed with somber-looking kids and a few worried-looking parents. It took a lot of courage, manufactured enthusiasm, and a bit of love 'n' logic to get through that meeting. The kids were upset about their beloved teacher leaving them, mad at the decision to get rid of overnight meets, angry about things being different than before, and very uncertain about this new teacher who was the face of all this bad stuff.

There were tears, yelling, cries for rallying on Facebook, and a grumblings about me being the wrong choice for the job. It led to weeks of answering emails, reading the anger in the local paper, constantly reassuring parents and students and administrators, all while trying to get the season off and running.

But that was a year ago.

Today was the first speech team meeting of the new season. The crowd was a little smaller, but the kids were ecstatic to be together again and moved when I asked them to sit in a circle with smiles and a sense of routine. We ran through the agenda, laughed, and argued over the hoodie design in a speech-y way. I signed a bunch of bus passes and dismissed them amid cheers for a great season ahead. Then I was swamped by kids who wanted to show me potential pieces, ask questions, and, mostly, tell me about their summers and get some validation through repeating shared jokes from last year.

I'm calling it a win.