love me, love my monkey

Whew. Today was no fun. One of the grade twelves came to see me at lunch today to tell me she couldn't make rehearsal and from there proceeded to tell me that there was no point in ever coming to rehearsal since her part was so lousy and she felt that the whole thing was a waste of her time. I'd been anticipating this problem - but that it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

The problem is that the girl is very talented as an actor, but she isn't able to attend rehearsal one or two nights a week because of her job. It put me in the position of having to decide whether ability or availability was more important and when I couldn't arrive at a clear cut answer I decided to assign her a minor role in hopes she'd understand my reasoning. She did not. She said I was being unfair and ruining her graduation year.

From there she went on to tell me that the fact that the school has had a different Drama teacher every year for the last five years also stinks and that it's prevented her from having the theatrical opportunities that students at other high schools in the city have had. She also went on a small tirade about how unfair it was the she has to work to earn her own money when so many of her friends are given money by their parents.

This then turned into a critique of my classroom rules/management because she felt it was horribly unfair that I had asked the class to cut out the critical remarks and sarcasm toward each other during the character work we are now engaged in. According to her this stifles her as a human being and prevents her from expressing herself freely. Without permission to mock and tease other students, there wasn't much left for her to enjoy in the class.

It was hard to follow her multiple complaints and I truly didn't know how to respond at all. I provided Kleenex and listened. In the end I invited her to consider working behind the scenes and doing some assistant directing with me. I asked her not to answer right away but to go and think about it for a bit and to let me know later. I don't know what I'm hoping for.

This girl reminds me of many of the actors I've worked with: scattered and emotional and very tightly wound around a fragile ego. That's what I don't like about a lot actors I've worked with but it's also what makes them interesting.

I'm trying to remember if I struggled like this when I started at AE, being new and having to take over someone else's program, trying to ease in some changes and make some changes immediately. I know I did struggle, but it's hard to separate out which things were because I was new to the school and which were because I was new to the profession.

I know that it's normal to have some resistance from the older students who've been there longer and have grown attached to other people and other ways of doing things. So I'm trying hard not to take this girl's comments personally or let them be too disheartening. And at the same time I'm feeling kind of down. I really hate hurting people's feelings and ideally want everyone to love the program.... and me.

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