Do You Hear The People Sing

I am seriously missing my students. Don't get me wrong, I love staying home with Garrett. I love not having to work on lesson plans. I even love not having to worry about the stress of the next production. But I miss the thrill of directing. I miss laughing with them. I miss sharing in bits and pieces of their lives. I miss being the teacher that they can relate to, the teacher who spends fifteen minutes telling them a story because, what good is drama if you aren't storytelling, the teacher who gets reprimanded at Denny's because her group is being too loud, the teacher who was probably being the loudest of them all.

I know that I am seriously missing them because I've started dreaming about them. It would appear that these dreams are on crack but that's beside the point. Take last night for example.

I was in San Diego and I went to see the MVA show. Meg was there too because she had decided to drive home from Arizona to see it. (Meg played Jo in my production of Little Women and then promptly graduated.) I went to the final dress rehearsal (why I do not know) and Meg was standing on the stage and I literally flipped out. It was really freakish behavior on my part because, while I really like Meg and miss her a great deal, I probably wouldn't flop around like a starstruck fanatic if I were to see her. Anyway, my class was putting on Les Mis which wouldn't happen for a great many reasons. For starters, I've tried to get shows approved at Mountain Valley Academy and let me tell you, if a character so much as says the word crap or falls in love or something, it's rejected for inappropriate language or behavior. So, I'm thinking they'd have a problem with the whole Fantine makes a living being a prostitute thing. Plus the innkeeper's wife does make use of the word sh*t and that would definitely be unacceptable. But, in the dream, Les Mis it was. They had a great deal of expensive scenery and pieces and I was wondering if the students had had to sell their souls to afford such a set. However, everything was circular and covered in white linens. I've seen Les Mis twice and I wasn't really sure how crisp sheets worked their way into the French Revolution. But I thought, "Ah well, this is certainly avant-garde." It got really weird when Ethan and Hannah who were playing Marius and Eponine sang "A Little Fall of Rain" from a bed...that they were in...together. That's just crazy on many levels because Hannah is a fairly high soprano, you know, Cosette style. I've never really thought of her as Eponine. But that aside, not only was it completely ridiculous staging, it was made more absurd by the fact that they couldn't get through it without cracking up. I'm thinking that when Eponine is laying there breathing her last few breaths, she's probably not supposed to be laughing. She's also supposed to be laying on the ground in the middle of a battle zone and not sitting comfortably in bed but that's really neither here nor there. It's good to know, though, that in a completely irrational dream my mind was managing to function somewhat rationally as I pondered, "What would Cosette do if she saw Marius in bed with Eponine? This is going to put a damper on that whole relationship thing." Hannah being cast as Eponine began making sense as it became apparent that I was standing in as Cosette. You know me with my charming soprano voice. Furthermore, I was draped over Michael, who was playing Valjean, in a position that, really, a teacher, former or otherwise, should not be in. I mean, it wasn't Mary Kay Letourneau style or anything but it prompted the entire class to snicker uproariously. I was more worried about the hideous wedding dress that I would have to wear at the end of the musical should I really have to go on as Cosette than I was about sobbing over Valjean's, er, Michael's lifeless body. Then, Dr. Bassett from Point Loma, showed up because his cable was out and he was bored and Stage Manager Paul knocked a gigantic ladder onto the stage and it narrowly missed knocking me out. The dream went on but I think you get the drift.

Despite the fact that MVA's production of Les Miserables was a giant disaster waiting to happen, I think I might have preferred that to Oklahoma. I'm hoping that they can redeem the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical for me. But, I don't know, when Curly busts out with, "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling. Everything's going my way," well, I mean, who talks like that? Maybe I'll believe it when it's one of my ideological high schoolers singing it out. Although, I guess they aren't actually mine anymore. That might be why I'm having psychotic dreams about them...