Juliet – Where For Art Thou?

[duck face already! i was a trendsetter.]

Found a couple old photos from high school drama class, when we did a scandalous production of Hair. It rocked the small suburban city of Chatsworth. No. But, it did bring in record-breaking (+ badly needed) sales for our li’l play production class at CHS. Drama was something of a legend, because our alum includes Val Kilmer, Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham, among modern working actors like Lindsay Sloane. In 96, Spacey was the shizz, and Lindsay was on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch I think or some-such other tween show. Administration couldn’t figure out how our teacher, Walt, was going to edit Hair in a palatable way for both soccer moms and Bob’s Classy Lady dads (50 Shades of Grey was a ways away) but he assured them he would. He also promised we would stop selling candy in the classroom to off-set the horrendous arts budget cuts that the LAUSD is known for, but let’s just say if I wasn’t semi-anorexic in high school, I would have cavities to blame on wholesale-priced Starburst now. The show was such a hit, we had to add an extra weekend with matinee. It brought families and our community together in a really cool way. Plus – and I’m not kidding you – the “drama geeks” caused a ripple effect where even the f-ing jocks started dressing like it was 1969. Me, being a social butterfly but with an aversion to any boy with a J or V attached to his identity, made my rounds amid school breaks just fine. Freshman year was tough, though, and I called my sister at breaks the first few days and talked loudly on the school’s pay phone about how miserable I was and what ‘bitches’ all the girls were (hey! it took a moment for me to get decent politics). She had passionately dissuaded me from joining drama because, well, they were ‘nerds.’ “It’s social suicide,” she and her bff warned me. It turned out to be the saving grace of my high school existence. By senior year, even though our dear Walt cancelled our spring musical and I was more interested in getting stoned and smoking cigs and doing shotguns with girl friends in the bathroom’s big stall (bonus points if you know what that is), I made it through. Winning not only Drama Princess but a yearbook and end of year department award for Drama, awards for our theatre festivals, like Shakespeare Festival, traveling around LAUSD with Where The Wild Things Are, but also spending many weekends planning shitty events like Drama Bowling, as the Social Thespian.

Who were you in high school? Does s/he resemble you now?