September 25, 2006
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The Daily News
1 So about Friday's rather mysterious Daily News: I imagine it can now be told.2 Without wishing to talk poorly of the leadership of the Yerba Buena administration, I'll try to be as objective as possible, although there may be a bit of my own feelings involved here.
3 When I did my official last show in January of 2005, I called it A Love Letter. It was designed to let everyone know that I was going to stop directing plays after that show, and it was my official last drama production. At the time, even though I was the Class of '05 advisor, I still wanted to offer everyone a musical, just a fun thing that is different to me than a normal play. Unfortunately, very few students seemed interested in doing a musical, and consequently, there never was one. Keep in mind that I had ALREADY announced I was done, and A Love Letter was my swan song, and it was a delicately designed show.
4 The entire YB administration knew I was not going to do any more plays at that time, and had the entire summer to find a new Drama teacher. I got in last year and realized that they hadn't done that, that they hadn't done anything and from what I could see, never did too much to try. Steve Barnhill, the Subject Area Coordinator for Performing Arts in the ESUHSD told me that they never even approached him about it.
5 When I got in last Fall, I KNEW that if Drama were to survive, it was going to need a Fall and Spring show. Knowing that the administration had dropped the ball, I decided to try to keep the Drama Workshop going. It had survived as one of the longest running clubs in the history of the school. Every Fall and Spring you could count on the Drama Workshop to bring a very fun and entertaining play to the entire YB community, and lives were built and memories ensconced in the swirling, mystical magic of the Theatre. Anyone reading this knows what that Theatre meant to people.
6 I decided that in order for the Workshop to survive, it would need help that the school couldn't really afford, evidently. A teacher would cost the District money, but all schools have some budget to hire a teacher to teach Drama. Evidently not at YB. So I thought that a brilliant creative means of keeping it all going was to have the Pigeon Players bring one or two of their amazing directors to come to our Theatre to direct, in return for being able to use the Theatre without having to pay facility use fees. It was a dream exchange to me. There isn't much going on at night in the Theatre anyway, so it ran itself.
7 The result was our Fall show this past year, the one called Once Upon a Time, and it was the miracle we all needed! An entire new group of students enjoyed the classic Drama Workshop experience: the auditions, the casting, the first rehearsals with food, the fun, the sweetness, and the sorrow...all thanks in large part to the efforts put forth by the Pigeon Players, who did some of their own spectacular stuff.
8 By December, my room had become popular once more; there was activity everywhere, and we decided to do a musical, the same musical I had promised to '05, but which had gotten ignored. We worked, and worked, AND worked. The result was the very sweet My Favorite Things, a collection of my own mother's favorite songs from musicals. Okay, so some were my own, but we all had a ball doing it.9 Before they had put out the sign-ups for classes for this year, I had told Ms. Robledo that I would offer to teach Drama again, because it was becoming obvious that they weren't going to pursue getting anybody. I didn't even want to teach Drama, but I offered. When the sign-ups happened, there was no Drama offered! I then asked Ms. Robledo why, and the answer was that they needed the elective slot to teach a CAHSEE class, so kids would learn how to take a test. Huh? So Drama got cut out that easily.
10 I went ahead with My Favorite Things because it had to be...and I wanted to make this one count. It worked; it worked famously. An entire new generation of the Drama Workshop was now in place and poised for 2006-7. I was going to relax all summer and then talk again with the Pigeon Players and see if it would work, and I was even willing to come in and direct a one-act or something, and even offer tech help. I was lying around the pool a few weeks before school, thinking about how wonderful life was, and how it would be fun to get back to it. I looked forward to different directors doing things and me just helping from the outside, so I could stay in touch with it and guide my Workshop.11 One phone call shattered all that. I was hired at EVHS, who made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I told them within seconds that I would take the job, which required one period of Leadership from 7-8, and a wonderful English Class from 8-9, and that I would run activities each day for the rest of the day. I have taken on that task, and it is enormous! Almost that very day I went over to YB and talked outside of the Theatre building with Mr. Cruz. He wished me luck, and I told him at that time that I still wanted to keep my keys and codes because I wanted to see if the Pigeon Players would want to swing the same deal as last year, and he seemed at the time to be quite open to it, nodding and smiling and wishing me luck. He did say they needed to do everything the right way, which to ME meant going to the District and getting all I.D.ed and all, which I was willing to explain to the Pigeon Players. Mr. Cruz later used that to imply that I had never told the Pigeon Players to come in and talk to him about the Theatre use.
12 Last Thursday, I routinely sent an e-mail to YB, and it went from Mr. Rocha to Mr. Cruz. It was a seemingly routine course, one we'd been down before. Nothing was a mystery, but the response was startling. Mr. Cruz insisted that the Pigeon Players contact him, rather than my contacting him. He also said that any sorts of concerns would have to go through Mr. Z, the new music teacher, who was kind enough to allow the Drama kids his room at lunch, but who clearly would be too busy just getting himself established.
13 Now if I could read attitude through an e-mail, I easily could interpret Mr. Cruz as saying to me, "Look, you decided to move so stay away. We can keep Drama going through our own people, so please stay away and don't bother us anymore." He could deny it all he wants but that was the gist of his sensitivity toward our Drama students.
14 I was outraged that YB had the opportunity to have some of the youngest, most talented directors in the Bay Area come in from just having directed Taming of the Shrew at Shady Shakespeare in Sanborn Park this past summer, and that they were being kind enough to offer their excellent vision and support in exchange for a few weeks of rehearsal.15 But he made it clear in his letter to me that they would have to go through a complete process that would take forever and which might result in more work than they had time for. And to them, they were already going ahead with a show, and we just needed simple access to the Theatre, but Mr. Cruz's rather terse response sent a loud message to everybody who ever did a play at the school that he couldn't care less about the tradition, that he has to be by the book, and that they should have to grovel for the space they cleaned, the sets they painted, and the students whose lives they had already touched. None of that meant anything; they had to get to the end of the line "like everybody else".
16 Last night I read an e-mail from Angie and Evelyn to all the people in the Pigeon Players that their show had to be shelved.
17 So that's what has happened. Cruz is like one of a million other principals who wanted to take over the Theatre and use it for occasional meetings, and other things more important than preserving a school tradition that has existed since 1982. To him, life is much easier at YB if the Drama Workshop dies and goes away. He then has a clear calendar to have District politicians and hot-shots come in and he could wear his tie and entertain them. And the students who were left behind, as well as the entire rich tradition of shows gets swiftly shoved aside neatly, so he has surgically removed Drama from his program. He barely got music in at the last moment this year, and his support of the Performing Arts at YB has been abysmal.
18 When I had announced that I was doing my last play in January of 2005, something should have been in the works on his end. The Drama Workshop out-survived a million other clubs through the years. It's every bit as much a YB tradition as are Spirit Week, Winter Concert, FANTASTICS, M.U.N., Mock Trial, Junior Exchange, and on and on. The Drama Workshop should have had a principal who was proactive and visionary, and instead, he made everything easy on himself but ignoring all of it, and just waiting for the day when I would leave.
19 Well, I left. And I am now at a school that sees how much I give, and I get appreciated and respected for all the hours I pour in, rather than attitudes of annoyance and wishing I would leave. EVHS, to be perfectly honest, has treated me like a king. YB treated me like a homeless person constantly begging for things, and who the administration just wished would go away.
20 The entire series of disasters the past few days has been devastating to two groups of people who gave all they could to YB. The Drama Workshop kept music, dancing, and Performing Arts alive as a vibrant part of the school. The Pigeon Players have flourished and have become one of the best young companies in the South Bay. Now, both groups have been completely disrespected, and consequently, Mr. Cruz now has a nice, fertile Theatre that he can invite outside groups in to frolic and destroy. Because that happens. That's a reality. And I'm basically out at YB, which is fine with me. I would do anything for the Pigeon Players and for the Drama Workshop, but I refuse to give Mr. Cruz another moment of my time.
21 He just doesn't get it.
22 And it's clearly evident he never will.
23 The Pigeon Players will recover from this. I will soar at EVHS, bringing some great wisdom and vision to a school that appreciates some of my ideas. YB will roll along, but the Theatre will become a home for janitor's tractors, storage, and the occasional meeting of hot shots who will sit at tables with pitchers of water and talk of how to improve things.
24 And the ghosts from all those wonderful shows, and amazing moments will drift off, leaving that Theatre an empty shell. And that's sad.
25 And I haven't the time any longer, nor the codes to go in and make it still happen. And trying to fight this battle will just take way too much our of everyone.
26 And so, my dear friends, scroll back to Friday's DN, pop in What I Did For Love from Chorus Line, and remember back.
27 Nobody will ever take the Theatre, nor the wonderful years of the Drama Workshop away from us.28 And to the students: I am proud to have had you come in and re-build everything. Last year was a miracle, and you were all a part of that miracle, and you will always live and perform in my heart. That will never end.
29 I love you all, everything.
30 Keep the flame always in your hearts. It's tough writing this.
31 I need to get to sleep now.
32 Good night, Moon.
33 Good night Drama. You'll be sorely missed.
34 Good night everybody.
35 Peace.
~H~
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