A Note About Competition, Part 2: My Kids

Welcome to Theater is a Sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and it is going to be an abbreviated post tonight.

So tomorrow is the big day, the day we have been working toward for the last eight weeks or so.

Tomorrow, my kids and I head to the one-act play competition sponsored by the Maine's Principal Association, where we will be competing against four four other schools for the opportunity to move on to the State Festival in a couple of weeks. 

In truth, there's not a whole lot more to be done now.  My kids have performed the show twice, we've been working on strengthening it this week, and, come Saturday at 3pm, it is going to be performed for the judges, and they will be the deciding factor in whether we win or not.  Regardless of what happens, my kids have worked hard, and the process has been an educational one, and they've made tremendous strides in understanding a rather difficult play with difficult characters. 

No matter what, of course, I am proud of them.  No matter what, of course, they have no reason to feel like anything but winners.

And yet, I want them to win.  I want our play to win. 

Not because I wrote the play, and feel like it is a good one, more than capable of winning.  It's called Aeroplane Over the Sea, for those interested, and it is published by Brooklyn Publishers.  I will one day write a blog post all about how and why I wrote the play.

And no, I don't want to win out of some pressing feeling of bringing a trophy home to our school, although that would be nice.

And I don't want to win for any kind of self-validation, a pat on the back, proving I do my job well.  I do my job the best that I can, my student actors seem to like me and trust me.  I am lucky in this.  A trophy, while nice, cannot give me a sense of "job well done", especially if I don't feel it in myself already.  The only person who really knows if I've done my job to the best of my ability is me, and I believe I have. 

I want to win for my kids.  My kids deserve to be winners, and that is why I want to win.  No matter what I can possibly say, whenever you compete, no matter how great a sportsperson you are, winning feels so much better than not winning.  I know this because I have been fortunate to win a few things in my life--- maybe not as many as I would like, and certainly my life is not perfect, but I do have memories of being a winner for some events that have mattered to me. 

And I want my kids to have that.

It's funny--- for a guy who has yet to have been blessed with children, I am using the term "my kids" an awful lot.  And, no, I don't suppose I even say it in a paternal way, but merely as a teacher to their students, but that is something.  It is still a position where an authority figure develops a genuine caring for a group of young people's successes and challenges. 

As I said, we have done what we can, and as long as they stand on that stage Saturday and do the best that they can do, then there is nothing more to be done.  And I know they will do their best out there.  Thus, in so many ways, things are out of my hands at this point (especially after our tech time at competition). 

So why can't I relax?

I suppose it is becaue I second guess myself, wonder what more I could have done to prepare these students.  After all, I know what to expect from these competitions.  Have I really done all I could do to prepare them? 

I think so. 

So much depends on the opinions of three people.  Three people.  Three people with thoughts, opinions, and personal tastes that can't be turned off.  It's not like scoring a touchdown or getting a ball through a hoop (which, of course, have their own challenges).  I mean, sure, there are the mechanics of it, vocal projection, memorization, character work, concentration, all of that good stuff, but at the end of the day, honestly, it comes down to what the judges liked better.  It really does.  And I am not putting them down for being impartial--- they are human beings. 

In any case, this will be a valuable experience for my kids (there I go again), and we will get to watch a bunch of theater over a few days, meet some like-minded people, and then just hope for the best. 

I most likely will not have another post for Theater is a Sport until Sunday.  My time is going to be pretty well taken up these next few days, and I won't be at home. 

So, until then, send warm thoughts to me and my students, and remember:  competition can bee good, and theater is a sport.

Upweek, High School, One-Act Plays, and Competition

A Student-Designed poster by a Student-Written Play

Greetings everyone, and thank you for checking in at Theater is a Sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and tonight's post is rather late.  Forgive me.  It is a busy week--- upweek.  Yes, all you theater people out there know what that means (some even like to call it H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKY-STICKS WEEK).  This is the week the shows I have been directing go up.  Friday and Saturday, an evening of one-act plays with my high school students.

You see, I am not just the playwright and theater blogger you all know and love, but I am also a part-time high school drama teacher, and the sole drama director at my old alma mater, Foxcroft Academy.   I teach a playwriting class, an intro to theater class, and I direct the school productions.  This week, I am presenting three one-act plays.  The first is a completely mixed up, weird and wild version of Little Red Riding Hood that came out of improvisations that my students have done over the last seven weeks or so, shaped (more or less) by me.  The second, is one I am really proud of, called Rabbits in the Garden (see poster design above) by a first-year student named Racquel Bozzelli.  She was in my playwriting class last semester--- Rabbits is her first play, and it deals with a young woman who is sent to an asylum, partly because of her experiments, which involve rabbits in the garden.  It is wonderfully creepy, and shows so much potential for a first play (let me put it this way--- I wish I could have written something this good when I was a freshman in high school).  I am super psyched, because the whole purpose of the playwriting class, aside from teaching the craft of playwriting, was to get student work on its feet.  I am a big believer in student-driven work.  And, finally, it is happening. 

The third play is a play I wrote called Aeroplane Over the Sea (which will one day get its very own blog post).  This play will serve as our competition play. 

Ah, yes!  Competition!  All across the country, high schools participate in one-act play competitions.  Here in Maine, of course, it is watched over by the Maine Principal's Association, and while I agree that everyone who participates in theater is a winner already, I am also a firm believer in competition pushing people to be the best that they can be.  Now, fortunately, in my experience, the competition festivals are very friendly... students are not cruel to one another, everyone is a good sport, every group gets applause and treated with respect.  This is important, and something I uphold with my students.

Having said this, I still go to win.  And everyone should.  Winning is fun, winning is good, but, most of all, winning is something that validates a program, something you can take home to your school and say, "See?  Theater's not THAT different from football, huh?"  Okay, so I'm kidding.  A little. 

I have found just in the short time I have been doing this that competition makes the kids snap to a little bit, makes them take things more seriously.  Like it or not, competition is a great motivator.  No one wants to go to any kind of competition,m even a friendly, good-natured one like a one-act play festival, with anything other than their A-game. 

Of course, these festivals can be frustrating for drama directors.  It basically boils down to three judges' opinions.  Three judges who are deemed "experts" by the MPA.  And don't get me wrong--- I've known plenty of fair judges, but I've also met plenty of mean ones.  Ones who, for whatever said reason, take their position as an opportunity to point out how they know SO MUCH more about theater than you possibly could. 

I guess that's why there are three of them. 

But even if you're lucky and get three really awesome judges, in truth, it is impossible for any one of them to take their personal preferences and separate themselves from what they simply like as people.  Yes, you can score things like volume and diction, but even scoring characterization opens the door to nothing but opinion.  Judges can't help but rate a peerson's characterization based on their own feelings of how a character should be portrayed.  Hence, Little Willy who played Hamlet with a bold choice of a lisp, probably has a lot going against him from the get-go, just like the director who decides to do a Cyrano without a big nose, or all sort of other choices. 

Still, it is educational for students to get feedback from these judges during the critique sessions.  It is a valuable lesson in learning how to take what is useful, and how to compartmentalize what is not. 

And, again, when I take my students to competition, just the very experience of them competing does make them winners in my eyes.

It's just that the goal is to be winners in EVERYONE'S eyes. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Gotta deal with upweek, that just so happens to be during a huge blizzard that may cancel my dress rehearsal tomorrow (with performance dates that can't be changed--- Ahhhhhh!), and with making sure the kids are getting the most out of the performances here in town. 

I was proud tonight.  As I said, a big blizzard is in the process of occuring, and I told my students that if school is called off tomorrow, so is there rehearsal (school policy).  These are high school students--- what high school student doesn't love a snow day?  But, God bless them, they said, "We better have school tomorrow... we have so much work to do!"

That attitude, in my mind, is worth four good dress rehearsals right there.

Thank you for reading this late post of mine.  And remember... competition can be a good thing in the arts, and theater, oh yes, is definitely a sport.

See you tomorrow.