Theater Fail

Geoff did a 4 week summer session at a local theater camp, new to us this year. 

After 3 years at Rebel, driving him to Salem every day would have been a soul crushing nightmare for me with the state of mind I've been in. I simply knew I couldn't do it every day and there is no one else from around here who goes that I could carpool with.

Instead, he went locally, and was eligible for their High School aged group, whereas I don't think he would have been ready for the older group at Rebel and would have been with the younger kids. Which is fine, but he also didn't like the idea of doing romeo and juliet. 

Most of the kids at the new program, there were about 8 of them, were his age and slightly older. The director was very focused on theory and skill, instead of actual performance. Early on, it became obvious to me that there were no parts, there was no audition, there was no final performance that I had to look forward to.

After all the summer months I'd spent watching Jess and Geoff doing their thing I was kind of crushed. I wanted to see a performance. Last year when he was in Two Gentlemen of Verona, it was a miracle to me to see how incredibly awesome and funny he was. I felt like he had grown so much and his technique and timing and performance were fantastic. I began to get slightly depressed (or, I should say even more depressed) about my decision.

I picked him up every day and asked him how it was, what they did. "You wouldn't understand," he answered. "It's all theater technique. I can't explain it to you."

Meanwhile, several of the older kids, in his group, were performing WITH the younger group in their full performance. I wondered how the heck that happened. The artistic director told me those auditions were held in early June, and these were mostly kids who had grown up in the program. Geoff was confused because they spent a lot of time together, those kids, and there were rehearsals and extra stuff that he didn't know if he was supposed to attend. 

I told the program director that I was kind of disappointed in the program, and why, and he told me that it bothered him too. 

Unbeknownst to me, he went and talked to the director of Geoff's program and they decided to do a final production.

But... no one told me.

I picked him up on the last day, and there was a large crowd there, and Geoff got in the car and asked me to drive him home. The artistic director came over to me, and shook my hand, told Geoff that he did a great job, and I started to realize that I'd missed something. We drove away and Geoff told me that they presented to the younger group and their parents, and the general public. He got to write his own monologue and perform it. He told me it was no big deal. He just wanted to go home.

I emailed a carefully crafted message to the artistic director to let him know how disappointed I was and he wrote back immediately, letting me know that it was entirely his fault that things weren't communicated to the parents very well. He pressed on the director, who didn't want to do a final presentation, to do one. Based on our discussion. And there I am... not in attendance. Great. I feel like an ass.

He said Geoff was amazing, which actually made it worse for me, because I missed it.

I have felt for days that my entire summer has been spent shuttling people from point a to point b, and that I'm not having hardly any fun. I miss kids that I know and love, I miss seeing performances. I miss doing stuff. 

On top of this, on Wednesday I get to go in for surgery and I am not wanting to do it. I just don't want to go anywhere or do anything at this rate. I'm feeling so sad right now, and don't want to feel pain on top of it.

Long and the short of it is that Geoff told me that he had a great time at camp, but I didn't see any sort of loving goodbye the way I saw during summers in the past. He told me he wants to go back next year but I don't really know what I'm going to have him do at this point. It is too early to tell.