New Athenian Academy

“I’ll admit it.  I get choked up at Christmas concerts… I mean holiday concerts… I mean winter concerts… I mean solstice celebrations.”

Actually Mr. Done, I hate them…. but maybe that’s because of what I have to do at every Christmas and spring concert.  I warn you, it’s not pretty.

The first year at my school, I got excited at the prospect of seeing my own children perform fun Christmas carols and of seeing my students up there in all their holiday finery.

Unfortunately I would not get to enjoy sitting in the audience watching.  I would be recruited into the actual creation process.  At my school the music department consisted of two teachers who focused on the music.  They didn’t put up the stage (yes we had to make our stage every time), or the lights, or the sound equipment.  And they sure as heck didn’t do any of the equipment changes (risers to band and vice versa).  Those jobs fell to the theatre arts class.  And guess who unknowingly took on the theatre arts class.  If you guessed me, you win a prize (think of one in your mind, that’s your imaginary prize cause I make no money to buy you a real one).

As one of the theatre arts teachers, I got to be grunt at the performances.  I got to inform the class that they had to paint a background (per the music teacher’s directions), build a stage, help the sound and light people (more conscripted teachers and students), do any needed equipment changes during the performance, and then take everything down that night.  Imagine the level of frustration, both from the theatre arts students and myself.  This was not our performance, it was the music department’s and we had become their lackeys.

So come the night of, I get myself and my children dressed for the program. (Even though I would be working the performance, I was still required to dress up for the parents)  We arrive at the school, where I drop my kids off at their classroom and race to the gym usually to find that something has gone horrible wrong.  The lights on the Christmas tree won’t light.  Or half of my theatre arts kids have decided not to come.  Or all the decorations have since fallen off the background.  Or someone with mud on their shoes decided to walk across my just painted stage.

After the crisis had been fixed or at least improvised, the concert begins.  Because of the no space issue in the gym/auditorium/cafeteria, the theatre arts students usually were regulated to sit behind the background.  A space that was about 2 feet deep and 16 feet wide and open at the ends.  Anyone sitting on the fringes of the room would be able to see my students.  All week we went over the equipment change assignments and the idea that they needed to be still and quiet during the actual performance.  But somehow those directives were never followed.  I would have to creep back there during te performance to quiet them or retrieve them because they missed their cue.  By the third year, I thought it would be easier to sit back there with them.   But then I had to sit with my students in silence and miss seeing my kids perform.

Finally the performance would end and everyone would be ushered into the too tiny lobby for cookies and punch.  I would try to find my children and mom to shuffle them off home before turning back to the gym for the deconstruction.  I would walk into the gym and find that a) half of my theatre arts kids had taken off, b) the band and choir kids hadn’t picked up the chairs like they were supposed to, c) the drills to take down the stage were missing or not charged, and d) parents have already started to tear down the stage with absolutely no direction and no idea how to tear down or where to put the pieces.  I would take a deep breath and jump in.

When all was said and down, I would have been at school for a full normal school day and then from ~5 to midnight for the performance and deconstruction.  I would have drunk about 5 cans of Mountain Dew (something under normal circumstance that I cannot drink) and have lost my voice trying to be heard over the music and talking.  I would be exhausted, stumble on home, and pass out in my bed.  I would wake up the next morning and know that come Monday I would have to start planning the next concert or play or musical or realize I had no lesson plans for Monday.  How exactly did I get myself sucked into this crazy situation?  I don’t actually know.  But I do know that I won’t be able to get out until I find another job.

And that’s why I hate Christmas concerts.

Oh yeah… one other job I was required to perform: crowd control of the high schoolers.  Like I had all this time on my hands.

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