A few summers ago, I enrolled my boys in a Creative Days camp put on by one of the local arts groups. The boys would have much preferred something more like “Whack Your Brother With a Light Saber Camp” or “Eat at McDonald’s for Every Meal Camp,” but I really wanted them to attend a creative camp because I was worried they weren’t experiencing enough art and drama at home. (Well, art, anyway.)
During each week of camp, the kids would explore a prevailing theme. Fun stuff like “Dinosaurs,” “South of the Border” and “The Great Masters,” which was by far their favorite because it taught them that in the art world, throwing tantrums and spilling paint on the floor doesn’t make you a bad boy. It makes you Jackson Pollock.
After a month of getting messy and torturing cardboard, the kids switched to acting and began rehearsals for the big show they’d be performing at the end of camp. This development made me very excited because, up until that point, the only thing I’d ever seen my boys perform was amateur surgery on dead worms. But now, now they were going to be actors! No, stars! Celebrities! Yes, as far as I was concerned, they were just one measly talent scout away from having their own shows on Nick Jr. and hanging out with Lilo at Promises Malibu. I just knew they were going to be amazing.
Or maybe not. My brief flare of stage mothering quickly dimmed as I remembered my own painful theatrical career. Like the time I was a purple flower with no lines. Or the time I was a green plant with no lines. And, of course, who could forget the time I was a crab apple with no lines. No wonder I never won an Oscar; I was typecast as mute vegetation by the age of 10.
But even worse than those roles was the incident that has forever kept me from stepping foot into the spotlight ever again. I mean, I was fine with playing the part of Abraham Lincoln, since I knew I was the tallest kid in the third grade; but did they have to make me recite the “Emancipation Proclamation” with a black furry beard covering half my face? I still wake up in a cold sweat yelling, “Four score and seven BLECH! GET THIS THING OUTTA MY MOUF OR I’M GONNA PUKE! I WANT MY MOMMY!”
And so it was with not a little apprehension that I watched the boys begin to practice for their show. I knew Sam, the oldest, would be fine since he’s outgoing and likes attention, but I was a little worried about Jack. Like me, Jack was pretty much born without the performing gene and would be much happier painting scenery or washing the lead actress’ hair, if it kept him hidden from the audience. However, he immediately surprised me by coming home singing It’s A Hard Knock Life and proudly showing off his new dance moves. After he took a very triumphant bow in the kitchen, he told me he couldn’t wait to be on stage. “Wow,” I thought, “Maybe we’re a theatrical family after all. Maybe we’re like the Texas Barrymores! Or, even better, the Texas Sheens!”
Finally it was the day of the show. My husband and I took our seats in the small theater with the rest of the smiling parents, and as we waited for the action to start, I grabbed his arm and hissed, “Get the video camera ready, my man. This is going to be fantastic! I think we’ve got the next Mickey Rooneys on our hands!”
“I think you mean the next Mickey Rourkes,” he muttered back. “They refused to take a bath again last night.”
Then the lights dimmed, the music swelled and suddenly, Sam and 15 other five-year-olds tromped into the room dressed in avant-garde Pterodactyl costumes made out of paper plates. (Apparently their costume budget was a little lower than that of Cats.) The kids stood in an almost-straight line, and then began to awkwardly dance while making high-pitched screeches before segueing into 20 minutes of self-written knock-knock jokes. It was all very Off-Off-Off-Good-God-Are-We-Off Broadway. Andy Warhol would have loved it; not so much anyone in the room with hearing ability.
Next, it was Jack’s turn to perform. He happily took the stage with the rest of the three-year-olds, then spotted me in the audience and gave me a big smile. I was so relieved he wasn’t nervous, and happily sat back to watch my little musical theater genius. And then, as my husband got the camera ready and I started mentally composing Jack’s future Tony award acceptance speech, the music began and Jack … stared at his shoes and looked like he was being punished for stealing cookies. (Unlike the little Nathan Lane next to him who was overacting enough to earn the nickname “Camp Ham.”)
“Oh, well,” I thought, as the show ended and we went to congratulate a happy Sam and a pale, shaky Jack. So at least one of my boys is probably never going to be an actor. He’ll probably never grace the Great White Way or the silver screen or even be involved in a humiliating tabloid scandal with Miley Cyrus. But you know what? That’s okay because not everyone’s cut-out for performing. Not everyone needs to sing and dance and emote while standing in front of an audience. In fact, isn’t that why they become … directors?
I wonder if there’s a camp for that?
A version of my essay that was originally published in the October 2010 Austin Woman Magazine.
Love it, our kids do have seem to have inherited the star gene…my brother loved to sing and dance on stage, my older son sports a sullen, I’d rather be anywhere but here face if ever made to grace a stage. I just lack talent.
It’s very cruel to make me laugh so much. No more reading your posts until after surgery (about a week of recovery should put me in the painful but tolerable range 🙂 )
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Camp This! for attitude adjustment issues. Still think they are wonderful little actors because there is a little star in each one of us…
All over the world, performers “typecast as mute vegetation” and giving you a standing ovation. I smell a new LA support group…
My youngest came up today and showed me several pages of the composition book I gave her to play with (code for: please, oh please, sit quietly in church and let Mommy listen). She has halfway filled it with stick figures – the superheroine Light Girl, her friend Nice Girl, and the villain, Dark Girl. She’s even angsty – Light Girl gets killed early on by a tornado whipped up by Dark Girl, and Nice Girl reveals her not-so-nice self when she goes after revenge. Obviously, I am raising the next Neil Gaiman. *weeps* I’m so proud!
Thank you for making me remember I once played the Yule Log. And very dapper I was in green painted corrugated cardboard.
So are you getting geared towards the role of “famous actor’s mama who looks like his sister”?
This was a gem indeed! One of the best that you have ever written Wendi! I was laughing hysterically at it all!!
Oh, if you tell me your husband is really that funny, too, I’ll be so jealous.
Married to a funny man??
What a way to live.
And, yeah, the acting part. I always hated attention, too.
You are so right. It’s not for everyone. My 11 year old has been in a theater program for the last 4 years. She steps onto the stage with a confident smile and an innate hammyness that could easily win her the Jambon d’ Or. My son was in his Jr Hs play this year. He was in the coveted role of “Party Goer” where he had to gavot (yes, gavot) at the prince’s ball. He did so with stooped shoulders, a pained look of humiliation and the occasional eye roll. At least I don’t have to worry about his tuition an the Tisch School.
Delightful, as usual. I expect nothing less. But the big bonus this time was learning that there are theater programs for children as young as my Caroline. My first three are most defintely not stage bound but this last one is destined to do something on stage. I just hope it doesn’t involve pasties and a pole.
Whack your brother with a light saber camp sounds exactly like the camp my boys would be superstars in. Theater and art though? Hmmm…
Great post. Thanks!
Loved the mute vegetation line!!! You crack me up.
Send them to camp up here – we have a predator nature camp where they go out and find owl pellets and dissect them for bones. Poop – even when regurgitated is so much cooler!!
I want to go to Whack-Your-Brother-With-A-Lightsaber Camp. I want to go VERY badly.
Alas, since for the first time in years he is gracing us with his presence at Thanksgiving, and I’m Too Old for camp, I’ll just whack him with my cane.
I should add that I absolutely love the photograph. Kudos.
You’re not mute vegetation…you’re a quiet cruciferous. I’m not even sure I used that word right.
This could be a good thing. Do you really want to be applying makeup to his pubescent body in preparation for every high school play he’ll star in? Especially when they’re the worst ones like Jospeh and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Dear Wendy,
A friend just sent me your Always letter. I nearly fell out of my seat laughing.
Thank you for expressing such succinct, and poet comments on a subject rarely talked about…
Keep up the good work.
The Texas Sheens! That would be AWESOME! Which one of the boys will be hanging from the chandelier in a room at the Driscoll, high on juice and harassing the room service staff?
And really? This was the best outcome from the camp. Little Nathan Lanes are SO obnoxious.
Just a tiny suggestion–in adopting acting role models for your boys, try to find a family that is not packed with substance-abusers. Surely there is one…
Rikki
My child is much the same. While I was that child who eagerly stepped into the spotlight and recited her lines with deep, deep feeling and VERY LOUDLY, my poor child had a rather traumatic time in his theatrical debut as “Pilgrim #1” in the Thanksgiving play. But I just say “Hooray!” maybe he’ll get a marketable skill instead of doing this acting nonsense.
My six year old daughter keeps getting cast as animals. She HATES to be an animal. So we put her in ballet thinking she’d like that. And what was she cast as in the Nutcracker? A sheep!! I think next time we’ll try pee-wee MMA.