Proud and Disappointed

You know what makes me wildly proud and extremely disappointed all at the same time? My daughter can say she has done more work on a college production than some theater majors. My daughter is two years old.

Last semester I was working on a small theatrical production and the students were practically non-existent when it came to assisting on technical aspects of the production. One weekend my wife decided to bring me lunch and bring my daughter along to see me. She really liked to see what Dad was working on and I asked her if she wanted to help. With a dirty look from my wife I handed my daughter a small screw gun (don’t worry, I was holding it too!!) and held her up to set a screw. She liked it, but then realized her new calling; handing screws to Dad. We counted them out and she helped me pick the next place to put a screw. It was some of the most fun I have had being a parent. I was very proud of my little girl.

Then I realized later that she had actually done more technical theater work than some of our theater majors. If you take away the experience the students get out of the technical theater courses, then the number of students with backstage experience drops dramatically. I was proud of my daughter for successfully completing a task far beyond her years (even if I did help a lot), and I know most two year old kids don’t put in time on theatrical productions, but college students who have chosen theater as a career should have more time in on production work than any two year old. I am disappointed that most students I meet today that choose acting as a career feel that knowledge about the technical side of productions is uninteresting and unimportant. The age old “when am I ever going to use this?” argument has been used in my class.

It’s sad that an interest in their chosen profession is so lacking in today’s student. Hopefully I will be able to keep the enthusiasm up in my daughter so that she wants to learn about every aspect of whatever it is that she wants to accomplish. The quickest way to success is having the knowledge to get you to where it is you want to go.