The King and I . . . and My Hair

When I was cast as Anna in an upcoming production of The King and I, I was all too happy to straddle the stage again in a corset. I say "again" because I had played the role once before, and I knew how much fun straddling the stage in a corset could be.

Then at a rehearsal, the director told me I was also going to be jumping around like a toad while singing, "Toads, toads, all of your people are toads!"

"Sounds like fun," I said enthusiastically.

"Actually, I'm just kidding."

I guessed the word was out that I was willing to do just about anything on stage.

Besides practicing my hysterical stage-straddling and toad-jumping, I had been growing out my hair since last summer. I typically wear my hair in an earlobe or chin-length bob, so for me, growing my hair past my shoulders was almost like growing an additional limb.

"What is this on my neck?" I would ask myself, shaking my head back and forth, only to discover flowing, chestnut tresses cascading in waves across my shoulders and down my back.

(This imagery is not exactly accurate. Picture flipped-out ends and a few short, wiry gray hairs sticking straight up off the top of my scalp. This is my hair when it is long. Most of the time, I end up banishing it to ponytail land. These are the moments I envy the very bald role of the King.)

The point is, I started growing out my hair last summer when I first heard about auditions for the show. I figured if I didn't get the part, I would treat myself to a cute haircut in order to prevent myself from wallowing in self-pity.

But I got the part. And I'm not complaining.

In fact, some of my friends seem to like my long hair.

"I notice you haven't cut your hair," an acquaintance observed in January. "Does that mean you got the part? That's awesome. And your hair looks good too."

"How long have you been growing it out? " a third grade teacher asked me.

"Since the summer."

"It's getting long," she said. "Do you just command your hair to grow?"

"I think I like your long hair best," another teacher said.

I must have made a face because she added, "But it's probably a pain, isn't it?"

My husband, Dan, loved my short hair. It was one of the reasons I married him. I was not going to grow out my hair for a man. (A theater production - yes. A man - never.) But he likes my long hair too. It gives him more "material" - you know - for his comedic alter ego.

The other day, he was running his fingers through my newly grown-out hair while I was trying to blog. He caught his fingers in one of the many tangles.

"Ow!" I said.

"Sorry."

Then, he did it again.

"Ow!"

"Sorry."

And again.

"Ow!"

"Sorry."

"Why do you keep doing that?" I asked him, slapping his hand away.

"It's kind of funny."

Of course, as is characteristic of everything I do, I couldn't possibly grow out my hair without being slightly neurotic about it. This particular neurosis probably stems from the late 80's and early 90's when my mother always made sure my hair was in the chronic, chemically-induced staple of this time period - the body perm.

"Your hair is too stringy without a perm, Becky," she would say. "It's just a body perm. It will add a nice, soft wave to your hair, not like the spiral perm you got last year."

I think "add a nice, soft wave" actually meant, "You will look like a poodle and smell like a chemistry lab," because that was always the outcome of my perm experiments. Hence, my hair neurosis.

For example, the other night I dreamed that I had accidentally cut my hair. I thought that the production was over, and then I realized it wasn't, and all of a sudden I had short hair, and I was worried I would lose my role. I woke up in a panic, drenched in sweat.

"How do you do 'accidentally' cut your hair?" Dan said after I told him about my dream. "Trip and fall on a pair of scissors? Oh, my hair's gone, ahh!"

Yes, Dan, that's exactly how it happens.

Now if I could only get down to my King and I weight. But that is a story for another time, another blog.

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One Magical Program

Hello butcher paper backdrops and cardboard sets. This week was the 5th and 6th grade music program at my school. For those of you who do not work with 5th and 6th graders, let me explain something. The 5th and 6th grade music program is often the most challenging to organize. Try finding a presentation that includes singing, dancing, and dialogue and, at the same time, engages 180 pre-pubescent young people. Then try preventing those same young people from looking like their teeth are being pulled sans Novocaine the whole time they are performing. This is my job every spring.

The typical 5th and 6th grade program week involves several adults saying things like, "Sing louder! Smile! Slow down your dialogue! We can't understand you!"

And in my head, I am saying, "It won't happen. You don't think we've been working on that for the last eight weeks? They won't sing louder, smile, or slow down their dialogue. Something happens between ages nine and ten, and children wire their mouths shut when you actually want them to use their 'outside voices!' It's called 'Selective Lock-Jaw.'"

This year was different. I should have know when, earlier in the month, one of my 6th grade classes begged to forgo the game day they had earned and practice the play instead.

Oh, I was still pulling my hair out the week before the program, urging kids to learn their lines. I had to put understudies on two of the roles because some of the cast members were not adhering to their "responsibility contracts." I even had to cast an understudy for one of my understudies, and one girl had to learn a new part last weekend.

But this week, something almost magical happened, something I have never quite experienced in my decade of teaching in the public schools. The only thing that has ever come close was when I music directed a youth show at asemi-professional local theater company.

Rehearsals ran as expected. My 5th and 6th sound guys freaked out a little because the CD player kept shutting off and going into power save mode between numbers. We heard the introduction to "New York, New York" about seven times during our first rehearsal. The two boys soon figured out a system though, and miraculously, the correct songs played at the correct times. Problem solved.

One of my 5th grade stage managers spent the first two rehearsals at the prop table playing with the hats. Finally the 6th grade stage managers, fed up with this tomfoolery, marched the kid to me and reported his behavior. I told the 6th graders to stand guard and told the 5th grader if I heard any more complaints, I would replace him on the spot. And the 5th grader pulled it together. Second problem solved.

One of the 6th graders forgot to turn in his wireless mic. The funny thing is, I could still hear his voice in the gym speakers overhead, like one imagines hearing the (unchanged) voice of God from the clouds. I went running up and down the halls yelling out his name (the kid's name, not God's). Defeated, I returned to the gym. He was calmly wrapping his mic at the back of the gym, having apparently been there all along. Seeing me run out of the gym, he had started calling, "Mrs. Duggan, I'm right here!" Final problem solved.

Right before our last rehearsal, a 6th grader asked if he could give a speech at the end of the performance the next day.

"Only adults give the speeches," I told him. "Otherwise, we would hear 180 speeches."

I am still not sure what kind of speech he wanted to make, but at the end of our final rehearsal, he said into one of the microphones, "Mrs. Duggan, we thank you." And suddenly, there was a chorus of thank you's echoing from the risers.

Something weird was happening . . .

Program day was a magical experience. The kids remembered their lines, got to "places" on time, and sounded beautiful. The stage manager and sound operators worked quickly and diligently and kept everyone quiet in the backstage area. I stood in the middle of it all and occasionally pointed to something or someone, but honestly, they didn't really need me.

In between performances, I returned from my lunch break to find five or six kids sweeping the stage and gym floor. They weren't goofing around, despite the potential of a couple of these kids, and I hadn't asked them to spend their lunch recess cleaning the gym.

"We just want the stage to look nice for our play," they said.

It wasn't my show anymore. It was theirs.

After the program, I found some of the younger students waiting in the cafeteria line "firing" each other. One of the characters in the play was a rehearsal pianist-turned-Donald Trump wannabe who shouted, "You're fired!" at various cast members.

I guess this was a popular character because the next morning one of my 2nd graders said, "That guy kept firing people, but he wasn't supposed to!" Then he added, "I love-ded that program!"

Several of the 4th graders who weren't even in the program wrote me thank you notes, thanking me for letting them watch the show.

The 6th graders also thanked me for letting them be in the program when they passed me in the halls, as though I had given them a gift. I didn't have the heart to tell them, "It's my job. I don't have a choice. I have to let you be in the program whether I like it or not."

One of the adults in the building said, "I think several of these kids may decide go on with theater or choir as a direct result of this program."

Another adult put it this way, "Now they are going to get involved in drama and music in junior high instead of drugs and alcohol!" One can only hope.

"Are you relieved it's over?" others asked me.

Normally I would have said yes.

This time I said, "I think I might miss it."

After the decorations were off the walls, the risers folded, the platforms dismantled, the chairs stacked back on the racks, I carted several loads of cardboard and butcher paper skyscrapers out to my Hybrid, prepared to store them in my garage (and makeshift scene shop). I stopped for a moment and wiped away a couple of tears.

I was mourning the end of this children's program the way I would mourn closing night of my own favorite theatrical performances. And I haven't done that in a while.

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This is How I Take a Break?

A couple of years ago, I decided to take a break from performing. Participating in community theater had been one of my favorite hobbies (aside from writing, of course). But it was beginning to feel less like a hobby and more like an unpaid full-time second job. I was even missing my husband Dan, although the jury is still out on how much he was missing me.

Whenever I have an obligation that keeps me away from home in the evenings, I buy Dan a new video game, and he hardly notices I am gone. Dan and I have always agreed that it is important to be independent and have our own hobbies. I participate in local theater. He snowboards and plays video games.

In addition to my theater burnout, my schedule at school had increased by six classes per week. Also, because my choir was developing a decent reputation around the neighborhood, we were being offered more "gigs."

I wanted to write more and travel. I started blogging weekly (if you hadn't already noticed), and last summer I took a trip to Europe.

I thought I was done performing for a while.

So here is a timeline of what happened after I made the conscientious decision to take a break:

• June 2010: Becky decides to quit theater.
• February 2011: Becky is asked to take over a role after another cast member drops out.
• End of April 2011: Becky performs in this show despite simultaneous several school choir/concert obligations. She happily, but wearily, fulfills all of these commitments. She is not as young as she used to be.
• June 2011: Becky is hired by the local opera to sing in their summer musical presentation.
• July 2011: Becky performs with the opera while taking a certification course in Orff training.
• End of summer 2011: Becky hears about a Boise production of The King and I; one of Becky's favorite former roles was "Mrs. Anna."
• November 2011: Becky auditions and is cast. (A happy day!)
• January 2012: Becky agrees to music direct a summer youth musical.

Now I am in the middle of rehearsals for The King and I. The week The King and I closes, I start my work with the summer youth musical. I guess once you have been bitten by the theater bug, there is no going back.

I bought Dan two new video games this Christmas.

"But I don't get as much time to play them. You're home earlier from these rehearsals than when you do out-of-town shows," Dan said with a sigh.

Like I said, I'm not sure how much he misses me.

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For the Sake of the Boise Schools Bond Levy

UPDATE: Boise's bond levy passed on Tuesday, March 13, 71% to 29%.

The Boise School District will hold a bond levy election on Tuesday, March 13. I encourage all residents in the Boise School District to get out and vote. If you're not in the Boise District, several other districts around the Treasure Valley are also holding levy elections. The quality of our public schools impacts not only families who have school-age children but the future of our community as a whole.

Being a music teacher and a firm believer in the importance of arts education, I understand that my specialty is often one of the first on the chopping block when districts start losing money. The Boise District has been unique in its ability to maintain a quality music program despite budget cuts, even winning a national award for music education.

Many of our awesome advocates have been providing levy facts and figures at our concerts and music programs. If I promoted the levy at my own concerts, I would say in an extremely desperate tone of voice: "You like this music program? Support it. Vote in the levy. Poor Mrs. Duggan could be the next to go because her profession is seen as frivolous and unnecessary." Of course, this is why I am not allowed to speak about the levy. And our awesome grass-roots volunteers are much more eloquent. (If you truly believe my profession is frivolous and unnecessary, please refer to this recent article in the Chicago Tribune.)

This is not to say that as a proud Boise School District employee I have not done my share of promoting our upcoming bond levy election. And in true Becky fashion, I have even been known to make a fool of myself in the process.

The other day, I was driving home when a truck pulled up next to me. To be quite honest, if I had been judging a book by its cover, I would have assumed the driver to be an anti-tax-raise-of-any-kind person. But the pickup was covered in green paint reading, "Pro schools. Vote 'yes' on March 13!" I quickly felt ashamed of my preconceived notion and tried to catch the gentleman's attention with a combination of enthusiastic waving and thumbs-up signs. I also pointed to my rear window where I had posted my own "Pro Public Schools" flier. I think he might have thought I was flipping him off.

On Monday, I was at the dentist's office, and the Boise bond levy seemed to be on everyone's mind. The hygienist asked me what the bond levy would do for our district.

I could have said something more informed such as, "It will maintain class sizes and special programs. The district has already tried to keep the cuts out of classrooms and away from our students as much as possible. Many of our administrators are already working multiple positions. We have nowhere else to cut."

Instead my alarmist side took over and I replied, "Save my job," except my mouth was cranked open and my teeth were being scraped, and it came out more like, "Eh - Aye -Ahhhhh."

Somehow she understood me.

The dentist, whose children attend a charter school, said as I was leaving, "We'll keep our fingers crossed for you."

Last weekend, Dan and I took a walk and saw a Tea Party no-tax-raises-under-any-circumstance-even-if-it-will-save-our-public-schools bumper sticker on one of the cars in our neighborhood. Dan had to hold me back.

"Everybody already thinks you're a crazy liberal!" Dan said as he steered me away from the house surreptitiously.

That's probably true. One neighbor made a comment a while ago about the government taking too much of his money.

"And then all that money probably just funds the thousands of wars that America has mongered," I said before I could stop myself. "Give that money to the public schools!"

He didn't say anything. I greeted his speechlessness with a nervous giggle. Then he smiled.

"Yeah," he said with chuckle.

Last summer, Dan and I met some people from Illinois while touring Europe. They told us that their public school system had a property tax charter similar to the Boise schools'.

"In our community, we don't mind if our property taxes go up a few dollars per month. We know it's going to a good cause," they said.

"Even in this down economy?" I asked.

"If we want good schools, we figure we have to pay for them."

To which I responded, "Why can't you live in Idaho?"

For your reading pleasure:
The Idaho Statesman endorsement
Reader's View about the levy
Facts and Figures regarding the levy

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Road Rage Almost Strikes Again (But Not Quite)

A few years ago, I posted a piece called My War on Road Ragers. (Please refer to this blog post before reading the following story, not that it will make much of a difference. It will just increase the number of hits on my site.) I am proud to say that with a little deep breathing, intense clutching of my steering wheel, and loud venting to my husband later that evening, I was able to prevent a road rage incident similar to the one described in my 2006 post.

As I was serenely (it was Friday, after all) driving home from work, I came upon a stalled car in my lane. My lane had a green light, and everyone in front of and behind me was passing the immobile car on the right. Fortunately, although a high-traffic time of the day, the stalled car was not causing many delays.

All of a sudden, a silver pickup truck (Always the pickup trucks! Again, please refer to My War on Road Ragers.) tried to enter my lane from his left-turn lane which had a red light.

I didn’t see him. He almost hit me. My lane's green light was turning yellow. I was able to speed up enough to pull in front of him as the light turned red. I was almost through the intersection. He didn't seem to mind the red light. He drove right through it and tailed me down the road, past two more traffic lights.

I was so mad. I clenched my teeth and the steering wheel. I wanted to follow him to his destination, but I was in front of him on a one-lane street. I glared at him through my mirror, hoping that, if he couldn't see my scary countenance, at least he could sense it. He was sitting in the driver’s seat with a woman perched next to him, and I could swear they were mocking me.

"You can’t tell from your rear view mirror," Dan said, as I bellowed the story to him that evening. "They probably weren’t mocking you."

“But he can’t do that! He can’t just almost hit me like that!” I continued to yell at Dan, "I wanted to chase him down, get him out of his car, and punch him in the face!"

I softened my tone of voice and said, "Then I thought, 'Whoa! This is not how I should be reacting as a pacifist.'"

“You really are schizophrenic, you know,” Dan said.

"Scenario" started to play on the radio. Dan turned up the volume.

“This will calm you down.”

And he joined in with A Tribe Called Quest.

In case you were wondering, it did calm me down.

"Aiyyo, Bo knows this (what?) and Bo knows that (what?)
But Bo don't know jack, 'cause Bo can't rap . . ."

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