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Published: August 15th 2005
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The Bridge
The Repair Request Letter to ASP read as follows: "Please help us. The only way for our 7 children to get to school is across an old suspension bridge that is falling apart. We don't want to take our kids out of school, so we need help repairing the bridge." Date: 7/01/05
Location: Jackson, KY
Living this past week didn’t seem so bad, but looking back it seems a miracle we survived it:
-At auditions we had 23 kids show up. Our show usually has 60. Ricki-Ticki-Tavi story is cut, as are a few characters and groups are made smaller (Monkeys, Wolves and Snakes)
-The number of kids continued to dwindle as the week went by. For some reason everyone had a dentist appointment this week. And I mean everyone. By Wednesday four of our monkeys had decided that they didn’t want to be in the show (which I attempted not to take personally) which left us with 7 monkeys (usually we have 18) one of which would not be back until dress rehearsal on Friday.
-Buck (the Buck)’s father got into a car accident midway through the week so she was out of the show. By this time we’ve already cut out a good 1/3 of the show.
-One of Kaa (the snake- made up usually of 12 or so girls in a Chinese parade dragon sort of way), was challenge to put it nicely. She wouldn’t keep her mouth shut and seemed thrive on
Megan and the Bridge
Megan and ASP people. According to the family who lived on the other side, the bridge used to be sturdy enough to ride a four wheeler across it..... negative attention.
-All the kids have no attention span due to what locals I’m sure would call to ADHD, but we would attribute to the bags of sugar and candy they’d bring to rehearsals and the horrible sugar lunches and snacks the school provided them (We ate with them for a few lunches- curly fries, chocolate milk, pizza, chips, and canned peaches for the serving of fruits and vegetables).
-Come show day no remembers their lines, the kid who plays Haiti (the elephant) is violently ill (more pages cut) and we can’t get anyone to focus or take the rehearsal seriously. Performing in a gym every sound echoes off the walls when they are backstage, but strangely enough when they are “onstage” you can’t hear a word they say.
The show some how came together despite our fear of power outages like we had several time during our dress rehearsal, leaving the gym pitch black due to the rumbling thunder storms vacationing in the area for the week. We got through the sudden deafening downpour made even louder by the cavernous emptiness of the gym, drowning out the barely audible kids even more. But we survived, and probably even better stated- the kids survived. Phew.
After venting with Megan half way through the week about some of the kids, we saw our contact (the person who brought us to Jackson) and in telling her how great the week was going (....) we actually convinced ourselves as well. We made the realization that this is the only theatre these kids have ever experienced, and probably ever will experience. This is all new to them and we need to adjust our expectations. Not lower them, but adjust them. And this is really the purpose behind Missoula Children's Theatre. Not necessarily big communities with lots of money and access to the arts but smaller communities with no exposure to anything beyond sports and video games. Showing kids that there is something else out there, and giving them self-confidence, discipline and all that other cliché crap that really doesn't mean anything until you're out here experiencing it first hand. An important realization for Megan and myself.
Quick story and pictures: During the week we made friends with a group called ASP (the Appliacian Service Project) a church based group that basically repairs houses in the area, as it's a very poor comunity and many houses are very much in disrepair. We went with them to a potential worksite our last day in town. This family has 7 kids (plus one on the way) and the only access to their paint peeling slightly stilted farm house is across a 60 foot swinging suspension bridge a good 40 feet above a muddy river. It looked like it had been pulled straight out of Indiana Jones- snapped wires, broken moldy boards and all. My eyes suddenly opened to how much the world is different than from what I'm used to. Driving away I realized I don't know if I could move to NY and attempt to make it as an actor after this year. It would feel so self-serving. I feel I need to be out in the world helping people. We'll see if that feeling sticks with me after this whole year on the road.
Update from the present: In Charleston WV, about to start our final week of the summer. Very excited to be going back to Missoula for check-in next week, we'll be attempting to drive over 2100 miles in three day- a feat I'm sure has been done before, but it won't be comfortable. I'll have to keep reminding myself that I'll be home in Portland a week later, and then CA, and the Portland again. So excited. I'll post more stories and photos later this week.
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Michael
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I know how you feel about exposing kids to theatre for the first time. A lot of my campers have never had any exposure other than the camp, and its really great knowing you've given them something. Keep rocking across the US. I'll see you soon buddy.