Somehow I am lucky enough that the powers that be are letting me spend a month of my life hanging out in Vermont, doing theatre with college freshmen.
To me, this is heaven. I lie in the striped blue sheets of the furnished apartment they put me in and look out the triangle window at trees beginning to go orange, a church steeple and, behind them, the mountains.
Also, the theatre with 18 year olds part is pretty perfect. One of the guys in the show told me at the first rehearsal that this is his first play. Ever. Which I somehow overlooked when casting the show but happen to think is totally awesome. Because I get to teach him really exciting things! Like what it means to cross downstage. And today I told him about staying open to the audience. It's little stuff you take for granted, but he's smart so he gets it right away.
But later in rehearsal today, something happened. I gave him a note about the gentleness of a line, of a moment. A small but important note which I expected to have to reiterate a couple of times and go back over in subsequent rehearsals. Because this kid is so green, right? He's new to this and to this vocabulary and his ability to understand and then control the trajectory of a scene is probably very limited.
But the dude did it. Immediately. He took the note. He totally changed on that line, opened himself up in the scene and connected with the actress opposite him in a way which I have yet to see him (or anyone here) do in rehearsal. And then he took it a step further and let that change motivate him to make a choice, to surprise her by extending his hand to her.
It sounds so small. And it was. But it was beautiful because of the firstness of it. For him. And because I know he really felt the magic that people who do theatre get to feel sometimes. He felt that for the VERY FIRST TIME. And it was just incredible to watch.
Maybe I got a little choked up.
