Groundlings Are Good For You

This post comes from our bass-playing, play-writing, swing-dancing, Deepish, Michaela Morton. She is pictured here on the right.

In just under a month on the road with Open Dream, I've found that each auditorium, gym, and cafeteria has its own character -- especially when filled with 80-350 elementary school characters! We've performed for kids who live and breathe the arts, who walk in hallways hung with crafts and anticipate our answers to questions about theater history and music terminology. We've also performed for kids who may call Big Shoes "a great movie," and who'll definitely admit that this show is the first "play" they've ever seen. Lately, I've been relishing the responses of kids who know assembly-room etiquette, but haven't been taught a rigid code of theater do's and don't's. They cheer -- loudly -- for the stuff they dig. They laugh uproariously at strange moments. They clap along. They stand to see. They take off their shoes and wave them around during curtain call. They shout encouragements to the actors: "You're doing great!". Sometimes they even pee on the floor, but I don't think that's a referendum on our show. They are a rowdy bunch of groundlings. Shakespeare would've loved them, and I do, too. I'm especially pleased because of what all this means: these kids think Big Shoes is for them. So all in all, we know they've got the right idea.