NiamhMe.net ... Blog/Personal

My Star Making Turn (Essay)

Once in late elementary school my after school daycare was going to hold talent show. In my genius I decided to write and direct a play, one based on a historical fiction book of Cleopatra’s teen years. At the time it seemed exciting until I hit several brick walls, and discovered how difficult it was to put on a successful play for a bunch of disinterested children. Several obstacles were put before me. They battled me and I battered back.

The first obstacle was my cast, made up mostly of my friends. For a while they took my direction well and were generally agreeable. Unfortunately we needed extras to fill out the cast and they did not all get along together. 3 people came and went from my extras after they bickered with the main cast and none were willing to resolve their differences. Eventually I persuaded one to come back and had to

On “opening night” came another dilemma. Despite the daycare teachers initial support of the project, they now turned against us. They had said we could have 15 minutes to do the play in and use any toys as props, but changed their mind at the last second. There wasn’t any time to cut the play down, so I knew we were going to have to rush through it, and further impede our freshman acting. After that we asked to go down to the gym early to get ready and we were granted permission.

Well the teacher we had spoken to had obviously not told anyone else we had been allowed to get there early because when another came in it was WWIII. I didn’t have much nerves until then, but the moment she started yelling all my lines went out of my head. And all of sudden, it was time. There we were in our plain clothes on an empty stage. I felt as if my whole wonderful play was falling down around me. We rushed through it and bowed as the auditorium politely clapped at the teacher’s insistence.

I don’t really know how successful we were with the audience. Perhaps as a comedy we had struck it big, but I didn’t really stick around to find out. I darted off the stage and stared unblinkingly at the wall for the rest of the performances. I consider it a success because we actually followed through with it, and made it to the stage and back again despite my primal urge to dart at the last moment, and I definitely don’t regret it or anything we had to go through to get there. Everyone has to face obstacles in their life before they can do things.

Back | Home | Forward