A different subject….

Wow, I was looking for something specific that I thought I might find in an old entry, which led to me going back and reading my entries from a year ago until the first one I wrote after my husbands death. I’m not sure that was such a good idea. Why do we do things like that to ourselves? I knew as I read the first one, that it was painful…I talked about how in love I was with my husband, and how we were talking. I think it is interesting to note that the fact that we were talking was of enough import to me that I wrote about it, and that made me realize that I was denying in so many ways, how bad things were, that when we DID have a few good days and we talked like we did many years ago, I managed to make myself believe that life was good. It was not. But I was ever hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, I need to think that that hopefulness was/is a good quality in me…that the ease that I found hope in those days will return, eventually. Right now it is a bit hard to find…But, that is not what I want to write about today. I want to write about Anne Frank. Let’s talk about finding hope in a hopeless situation….

Today they released the movie "Diary of Anne Frank" or a similar title, on DVD. I heard about it on "The View" this morning. (I’ve already told you it is my dirty little secret of daytime TV that I watch religiously) Anyway, it brought back some memories for me and made me think again that I am going to try and find a way to visit Amsterdam and her house. There was a time that Leisah was planning a trip to see her daughter and son in law and I thought about going with her, but before I could make the commitment to go with her, her hip flared and she decided not to go, and that ended my thoughts on that subject. Now, once again, I’m inspired to think I might try and make that trip at some point, after all. My obsession with her diary started when I was a young teen and was asked to read the book for school. (As an aside…I think that those reading lists of required books in school are SO important, because I doubt that I would have read that on my own, and many, many other books that ended up teaching me so much about life, history, etc. and I am SO much better for having read them) then years later, when I was living in Ruston, I started working for the North Central La. Arts Council, which got me involved with Community Theater, and I ended up directing the newer version of that play and it was and still is one of things that I have done in my life that I am proudest of. And I want to tell you about it.

I had started out stage-managing plays for other both gifted amateur directors as well as some college theater professors, then I moved to co-directing and then directing my own stuff. I found that I enjoyed it and was actually pretty good at it (on an amateur level) and despite our "amateur" status we got paid for it! ( I figured out that it worked out to about 2 cents an hour, but I would have done it for free because I loved it so much, but maybe not nearly as much) I wanted to make a trip to Seattle to see Leisah and also to take the boys on a vacation, and since this was during the time my husband was in school, there was no money in the regular budget for that, so I took on this extra project with a goal in mind. I chose this play because I knew it would be commercially popular in our small town, that it would allow me to add school performances which meant extra money, as well as sharing a story with school kids that had meant a lot to me, and that I thought was important to tell. At the time I took it on, I had no idea that due to many unforeseen circumstances, that it would turn into magic on the stage. First of all, the newer version of this play is SO much better than the older version. Much more compelling, if you can imagine that. Secondly, I had no idea that I would end up with a cast that could make it that good. Remember, that was and is a small town, with a small pool of people who act, even with having a very good theater school, they by and large don’t usually do "Community Theater" as the large majority of them see that as beneath them. So, I pretty much knew who I could get to do what. I knew that if I couldn’t find someone else to play Pater (Peter), that my youngest son would do an adequate, if not good job of it. What I didn’t know was that his young girlfriend at the time (who would be the only other girlfriend that he had before he met his current fiancé’ and their relationship would go on for years) would audition and the combination of decent acting skills, but more importantly, their budding young romance of their own, would lead them to be spectacular together on stage. I also couldn’t know that an older Masters degree theater student would get pissed at his professors, aand decide to sign up and audition for the role of Anne’s father, and that he was incredibly skilled in both acting and set design and that he, combined with my young Anne and Pater, would inspire a cast who had done many other local theater productions to become simply magic on stage. MAGIC, I tell you, MAGIC!! The word started getting around during rehearsals, and other professionals from the University started "stopping by" and chose to give me invaluable advice about a myriad of other things, loaned me lights and other equipment that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and together, we created something that was so much bigger than its parts! We did our three performances to a sold out audience. They asked us to do three more over the next weekend…they sold out as well. We did our two school performances, and were asked to do three more. Due to conflicts in scheduling with our cast and crew, we could only manage two more, but that was enough. It is the first time I had ever seen 6th, 7th and 8th graders totally silent. The ending, which was the guy that played Anne’s father coming on stage and telling what happened to all of the rest of them, put me in tears from the first time I heard him in rehearsal, to the very last performance. As I said, it remains one of the best things (minus giving birth to my children) I have ever done and I’m STILL so proud of the work we did.

So, if you have never seen the play, or read the book, or seen the movie….take the time to do so. It is a sad, but wonderful story of how hope can help us all to survive, and even fall in love, and thrive even in during the most dire of circumstances.