peg22 | An observational rant: High school theatre programs ruin lives . . .

. . . because they present the MOST unrealistic picture of how theatre works in the real world. You are never, ever going to play Eliza Doolittle, Blanche Dubois, and Lady Macbeth in the same year. EVER. You are never going to get EVERY role you audition for. EVER. We all kinda know that , though - right? We know that those brave souls who head to New York or LA or Chicago or Kansas City or wherever - their back is UP AGAINST IT - HARD.

We've all seen the after school specials and the Lifetime movies and the A&E documentaries. It's part of the allure, that cautionary tale of trying to make it in the theatre or the BIZ, right?

So most of us head to real life and love and friendship and family and despair and hope and everything in between that comes with that life so real and we take jobs at Bass Pro Shop, even though we are anti- shooting big weapons at living things because we need to have a JOB, and we work at less than glamorous desks and cubicles so that we can be off at 4 to be at the kids soccer games, and we work three different jobs so that we can go on vacations to Europe or Hawaii or Colorado . . .

and it's all good, right?!

WRONG. Because just this week I have interviewed scores of people who said the exact thing same when asked why they want this menial little low paying job I have to offer when they have a perfectly good medium paying job already:

"I have always wanted to get back into theatre . . . OR . . . I just love "the theatre" and have missed it . . ."

and the JOB is actually to answer phones and mail tickets and pick up dry cleaning . . .

and I have decided that it's because HIGH SCHOOL THEATRE PROGRAMS are like crystal meth . . . leeching into your pores forever, and just when you think you're good - you don't ever have to have a hit off that pipe again, a crystallized memory of how the lights made the dust look like stars when you flipped on the ghost light, or how the wings smelled when 25 rats marched off during Nutcracker, or how you had your first kiss up in the catwalks, or how you fit 12 people into the booth at Pizza Hut for the cast party . . . it slams you against the wall and you head off in your "interview suit" and your way overqualified resume and you hope against hope that this is going to be your BIG BREAK.

Nothing else in high school does this. You don't go through life with the nagging feeling that if you just joined a choral group or chess team, your life would double it's meaning. No one EVER mentions any other high school activity in their REAL WORLD job interviews, do they? When they're 43 and have had 22 jobs since the first one at Hardees where they shoved ham and cheese out the drive-thru window to their friends and quit one weekend cuz they wanted to go to Pizza Hut for the cast party, do they?

On the other hand . . . those carefully hidden dreams are why you sit in that cubicle with smiley face post-it notes reminding you to purge old authorizations and spell out terrace and avenue and street . . . because I guess unless you are one of the lucky ones who find a vocation or career that doesn't require luck, kismet, and excellent bone structure - like doctor and lawyer and president of the united states - you spend much of your life working somewhere while dreaming of working somewhere else . . .

it's all so complicated, isn't it? In a good way.

Gotta go, I hear Starbucks is hiring - and they offer a free pound of coffee every week to employees, which would really come in handy as I'm up all night writing the next GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL . . .