MUSICAL THEATER: A Parent's Perspective

It’s spring and graduation’s coming.  It’s been a year of lasts:  the last child getting ready to graduate from high school, the last chorus concerts, the last parent-teacher conferences, the last bus rides to school, and, sadly, the last of the school age theater productions.  I’ve seen so many changes in my son in the past four years.  I credit musical theater for boosting his confidence level, strengthening his work ethic, initiating his acceptance by others, enabling his acceptance of others, and making him content to be alive and comfortable in his own skin.  It wasn’t easy, and was sometimes torture for him to be a young teenager.   My sincere thanks to all his theater mentors and peers at all the venues through the years for seeing something in him and allowing him to grow and shine. I commend the young man himself for learning to be persistent, open to suggestion, studious, and gracious.   

A parent's interpretation of the looping cycle of musical theater:

Mem'rize lines, steps, a song.                                                                                               

Use the courage, don't do wrong.                                               

Sit and wait, director's call.                                                          

Ingest the outcome, standing tall.                                                 

Complain the role's not good enough.                                          

Alas, this thing is just too rough.                                                  

Let it blossom, just hang tough.                                                   

Together, watch the parts unite.

Heck week, brace for that first night.

Entertain, for they have yearned.

Adjust the flow with what you've learned. 

Take your bows and shed some tears.

Evolve and crash, and then shift gears.

Relish friends and stints for years.

BRAVO!!