“It happens with every new school year. So much so, you could bet your life savings on it. Somewhere in America, school administrators and parents will try to censor or shut down a high school theatre production.”

From my ten years of hindsight, and not quite ten years of toiling in the difficult world of professional theatre, all the wisdom I am fit to impart on my younger counterparts this week is: Enjoy it.

In January, due to the protests of a group of students at Ithaca High School in Ithaca, NY over the casting of a white actress in the role of Esmerelda in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", the school decided to cancel the production altogether. 

While musical theater has made tremendous strides in schools, unfortunately, there are still many ways it is still prolonged from having a much stronger impact.

It’s hard to believe it has been years since I left you. A little part of me still remembers the last curtain call for the last show I ever did with you. 

What’s even harder for me to believe is how far I’ve come, and how much I’ve done since then. I’ve graduated from college, where I got a degree in the same subject that you first got me into. I’ve slowly transitioned from acting to playwriting. Now, I’m living in New York City, in the hopes of following some of the very same dreams that you first made me think were possible.

In this field, rejection is common. Sometimes we blow an audition. Sometimes we drop the ball on an interview. Sometimes we get the job and make a mistake…and lose that job. Often in these cases, the blame is on us. We might not have prepared well enough, focused well enough, paid close enough attention, or done enough research. These times are hard, but them’s the breaks. If you don’t do the work, you don’t get (or keep) the job.

You go to school, you go to class. You sit and listen to the teacher. You absorb everything like a sponge, work through the new techniques in class, with your scene partners, and at home alone.

Then you notice everything you learn in the performances you watch.

And it never. Goes. Away.

Theatre is complicated, no matter what your role. Professionals make it look easy, as any professional in any field does. Stage managers have their blocking, cues, line notes. Actors think about their obstacles and objectives and using their favorite techniques. Costumers need to find or create costumes; sound designers need to make the perfect sounds and lighting designers need to make the perfect light mixtures.

Hopefully, you are doing your part in theatre out of love and passion. Hopefully, what you’re doing isn’t a chore and is something you actually love.

Hopefully, you’re actually having fun.

Actors, actresses - cast your minds back to the first show you ever did. Can you remember the director? Can you remember the feeling of hanging on their every word because you know that this person will train you to be the best you can be?

As performers, we find ourselves in the dreaded “off-season” far more than we probably want to. Either work is hard to find, or we move cities, or life throws us curve balls that force us to take breaks. This time of year, college students are returning home for two weeks or more, which I recall seemed like an eternity after a semester of nonstop work.