Guys and Dolls

Every year I ask myself why I do it.

We gather in winter, in the darkened afternoon, to cast the high school musical. This year it will be Guys and Dolls. Almost fifty young people come to audition. Every year I am awed and moved by their courage -- to stand up on the stage of the Lucy Hurlin Theatre, empty except for me and Ray Sweeney, the musical director, and sing. Some are so nervous they can barely speak. We give all of them parts.

To cast: a word meaning to choose those who will play the parts, but also meaning to throw outwards, like seeds. All through January, February, March, and April, we will wait for those seeds to germinate. It's not passive waiting -- three evenings a week, then four, as the show approaches, we rehearse. Rehearsal is teaching and learning. They must learn the music before they can sing. They must learn the movements before they can dance.They must learn the lines before they can clothe themselves in character.

It is a slow, often frustrating process. Students these days are torn in many directions -- the brighter and more accomplished they are, the more commitments they make. They are scholars, athletes, artists, servants of the community. They have after-school jobs. They get sick. They go to visit colleges. We rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.

The days get longer as the time before opening night grows shorter. We begin to see the green shoots in the ground just as we begin to see the play come together, the singers singing, the dancers dancing, the actors playing roles, not just saying lines. But so slowly  -- will they be ready in time?

We all know how spring doesn't come gradually to New Hampshire. It explodes. That's how it is with these plays. The day before dress rehearsal, they always tell me they don't feel ready yet. I tell them no actor in history has felt ready. We don't put on a play when we feel ready -- we put it on feeling terrified and inadequate. We suddenly find ourselves on stage in front of an audience that is waiting to be entertained. It is the moment when practice becomes performance. It is the moment the seedling bursts into blossom.

I don't know how to explain that transformation. It is what Dylan Thomas called "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." I've seen it in every play I've directed with young people. It is as if, 24 hours before the first performance, they wake up. They open their eyes. They spread their leaves. They explode.

And that's why I do it every year.