Stage Struck
Father and daughter enjoy a shared love of the theatre.
Richard Scrimger

“So, did you have fun this afternoon?” I asked my 14-year-old daughter on our way home from the practice. She leaned back against the car seat and said, “Oh, yeah, Dad. We worked hard, and I’m real tired, but it was great!”

“What do you think is the best part of it?” I asked. She thought hard. “I like learning the new stuff,” she said. “And having people say I did well. But I think I like being with the other kids. We’re all together on the line, and there’s lots of good laughs.”
“I know,” I said.

We weren’t talking about a hockey practice, my daughter and I. She doesn’t play hockey. She acts. This was a play practice. She is in a local production of Seussical, the Musical. She’ll rehearse every Sunday until April, when the show comes on. She gets to play a jungle creature, an evil bird, and the Grinch, who has a cameo part. She has costume changes, eight speaking lines, and 16 songs. And she’s having the time of her life.

Kids and theatre go together. Don’t you remember playing dress up? My kids used to use towels and toques and sticks to turn themselves into superheroes, Ninja warriors, medieval knights and dinosaurs – often in the same afternoon. And the class play – don’t you remember those? How many school productions of the Christmas story have you seen? (My personal favorite was a fourth-grade show where every single character, from the angel to the shepherds and three wise women – not too many boys in the class that year – wore a terry-cloth bathrobe.)

How many smiles did you count on stage? How many giggles?

That’s the point. Theatre is fun. It’s fun the way sports are fun – with discipline and hard work and expert coaching, and more fun as you get better at it. There’s amateur theatre for the same reason that there are amateur sports. Fun. Not a lot of amateur chartered accountancy leagues out there.

Theatre is not competitive like sports. You’re not trying to beat Shakespeare or Rodgers and Hammerstein (although I’m sure there are many nights when they writhe in agony.) But the stakes are high. The adrenalin flows just as fast. Every performance is a tightrope walk. Live theatre is so immediate, so full of chances. One dropped line, one missed bit of business can stop the show. Believe me, I know. And that’s part of the attraction. Tennis is no fun without a net. Actors learn early on to practise hard, and to help each other. These are good life skills, too.

You don’t have to be in the show to get something special out of it. I think it’s important for people to see live theatre. It’s not like watching TV or movies. The sets, costumes, and backgrounds are not realistic. You have to work in order to believe. You have to use your own imagination. This is an active kind of participation. And the more you like a performance, the better it gets.

I can tell you, audience reaction is amazingly important to the success of a show. A big laugh or a round of applause gives everyone backstage a boost. This is especially true of local theatre productions. I’m a big fan of local theatre. There is something, I think, truly moving about people singing their souls out for two hours, and then going back to being cops or nurses or students. We really are amateurs. On Broadway, they perform for money. We do it for love.

One of the best parts about acting is that you belong to a team. Every member of the cast is important. Together, you are contributing to something greater than you are. I came to amateur theatre as a middle-aged writer, used to spending time alone, and I was astounded at how much fun I had being part of something. I wish now that I’d taken more interest in theatre early on. When I got the chance to be in a show with parts for children, I encouraged my daughter to audition. And now we’re both on the team. We go to rehearsals together.

That’s right. The scene in the car came after a rehearsal where we both learned our dance steps for one of the ensemble numbers. Step-ball-change, left kick right kick, forward slide, and don’t forget the jazz hands. My daughter took her place in the chorus line and got it first time. I didn’t – in fact I fell over halfway through. That was one of the times everyone had a good laugh.

As we pulled into the driveway, my daughter turned to me. “Next practice is next week, same time?” “You bet,” I said. I didn’t have to ask if she was looking forward to it. The smile on her face said it all.

Richard Scrimger is the well-known author of books for children and adults. His “Nose” series of kids’ books features Norbert, a tiny wise-cracking alien who lives in the hero’s nose. Richard’s latest book is From Charlie’s Point Of View.