Yesterday Sucked-Part Two

Alex had a call back for his school play after school, which was supposed to end at 6:00. He called at that time and said that the drama teacher had asked a few kids to stay after until 7:30 to read for the leads. He went in, thinking that he was getting a lead since she had asked 5 boys to stay after and there were 6 boy leads. At the end of the hour and a half, she gave all 4 of the other boys a lead, gave one of the remaining leads to a boy who wasn't even there and gave the last boy lead to a girl. Alex was the only kid there, including the girls, who didn't get a lead. Then she says, to everyone, don't worry if you didn't get a lead, you are still in the play.

Alex has had many disappointments before with not getting the parts he wanted. It is a part of acting and he handles it really well. This time, however, he did not and I don't blame him. First of all, he was on the fence about trying out for this play. They have a new drama teacher this year and he didn't think she was very good. He had joined drama club at the beginning of the year, but ended up quitting because it was so unorganized and she let the kids run wild. I encouraged him to try out because at that school, they had always given preference to 8th graders for the leads, only going to 6th and 7th graders if they ran out of 8th graders. Apparently that isn't the case any more.

At the try-outs, the drama teacher wasn't even the one who was doing the evaluations. She had brought her middle school daughter, one other middle schooler and several high school students to help with the auditions. The high school students did the evaluations. Then she posted the call back list and some of the kids who didn't get on it went to her and begged and she put them on the list. Who ever heard of such a thing? Call backs are never negotiable.

Anyway, the reason Alex melted down was because first of all he figured everyone who was asked to stay late would have a lead and she was just having them stay late to decide which kid would get which part, since she had fewer boys than available boy parts. All the kids who stayed thought the same thing. Another reason was that he had gotten compliments after singing a duet with a girl at the earlier call back. He also had gotten a standing ovation from the kids in the audience after he sang. All of the other kids who were trying out were sure and kept telling him they knew he was going to get the part of Troy (High School Musical 2 is the play).

CUP and Luke went to pick him up and he came in the front door, threw his backpack down, kicked off his shoes and ran through the house and out the back door. I asked what was wrong as he went past me and he wouldn't answer. I let him stay outside for about 10 minutes and then I went looking for him. I couldn't see or hear him, but I started calling and got no response. Then I started to get a little worried because I had never seen him that upset before, but he finally came up on the deck. He had obviously been crying and still could barely talk about it. He finally told me what had happened and I didn't blame him for being upset. I don't like the way the drama teacher handled this at all. She should have known better. It has nothing to do with the fact that he didn't get a lead, that he could handle, it was the way she went about not giving him a lead that was the problem.

I don't know what he is going to do now, as far as the play goes. All of his really close friends got leads. I think he should quit because it is a huge time commitment. That would be fine, if he had trust in the director and respected her, but in this case I think it would just be stressful. My guess is that she doesn't like him for some reason and might make his life miserable if he stays. I normally hate quitting and never allow him to try out for a play with the understanding that if he doesn't get a good part, he will quit, like many parents do. I tell him that if you make a commitment, you keep it. I did tell him before he tried out for this one, though, that he could quit if he wanted to, as long as he did it at the very beginning so it wouldn't be a problem for the teacher. In this case, since he will just be an extra, they won't miss him anyway. I am going to leave it up to him and support him either way, but I really hope he decides to quit. He applied for a scholarship with a local acting school and if he gets that, he will have to quit anyway.

Ugh, yesterday was one of those days when I wonder if I would have been better off childless!