Sweet circle from actress to director

Six years ago, a ten-year-old girl walked into the Lakeshore Players Summer Youth Project. Young and filled with charm and charisma, I soon discovered she also had a strong work-ethic, a blossoming talent and a generosity of spirit.
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She had a small part in Cast Away in Time which evolved into Cast Away in Shakespeare's Garden. The play was a semi-finalist in the Bonderman Symposium and later took 2nd place in the Jackie White Memorial Play Writing Contest. At the Bonderman, I was mentored by David Saar from Childsplay theatre in Tempe, AZ who advised me to drop the last 2/3 of the play and focus on Shakespeare's Garden. I had already felt that in my bones. I loved the play and rewrote and edited and rewrote. In time, it was very different from the play my young actress was in - in fact her role had combined with another and no longer existed!


Fast-forward six years, and I have worked with this young performer again and again - in truth - I have happily worked with most of her family. Their abilities enhanced my plays. And then I received an e-mail stating, "I would like to direct one of your plays for my Baccalaureate Project in high school. I have no budget - just a dream."
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It took me a nano-second to grant her the rights to any of my unpublished plays. And she chose the very first play she was ever in - knowing I had cut her role and ruthlessly edited it and so it came to pass that she would direct the new Cast Away in Shakespeare's Garden. It would be my first production since my manic editing.
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She scrambled as directors do. She was responsible for all production values - sets, costumes and props. Scheduling, teaching others how to work together and oh yes - she had to direct also! She fretted. Worried about the young teens talking through rehearsals and not listening.
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"That's normal," I replied. "They don't listen to me either."
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And she doggedly continued the process - marching to opening night. There's a time during a production when you are so ensconced in the rehearsal process, opening night is a faraway star. You know it's there, but it's light-years away. You stop thinking about it and stay in the moment. Until, it looms. Until there's a tech rehearsal and then a dress rehearsal. And suddenly the unreality of an opening becomes blazingly real. The world you created in a cocoon will be going out into the world. Ready or nor, there it goes. Adult directors become frazzled. Sleep is not always granted. You jot odd things down when not in rehearsal because you know you'll never remember it all when you get to the theatre.
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On Friday, April 23rd, Cast Away in Shakespeare's Garden opened at a local school. Lovingly directed, with an eye towards creating pictures on a very fine set, building relationships between the characters, creating moments and still taking care that sound cues are done and the props don't disappear - it opened. And was all there. And all that. And lovely. I couldn't ask for a better beginning.
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Opening night was April 23rd - Shakespeare's birthday and he was gleefully celebrated with a peek at how modern teens might react if they encountered his family in Elizabethan times. I think he would approve. And there's one more thing about April 23rd that's very important. It's all nice and good to open a play about Shakespeare on Shakespeare's birthday. But what is truly splendid: opening night was also the 16th birthday of an extraordinary young woman - someone I have had the privilege to see grow in the very tender years between ages 10 and 16 - yes, it was the director's day. My former student. The reason I go to work. The reason I love youth theatre. Happy birthday, Bree!