Treasure

In fourth grade I had made an appearance as one of the redheaded children in my sister's high school production of Carousel. It was my first taste of theatre and I enjoyed it and so when the new 8th grade English teacher Terry Kafka was putting together an after school drama program, I signed right up. It was 1975 and I was in 6th grade and officially in "junior high" so, you know, the big leagues and all. We changed classrooms and had lockers and it was all very adult and cool. Anyway, Kafka liked improv so the first production that I signed up for was Treasure Island and he had the basic outline of the story and invited all those in the group to simply join in as characters were needed and eventually I think that's how everyone got cast in their roles. I ended up being a part of the pirate crew which was OK by me as it gave me a chance to get more confident. The highlight of the show was going out to assistant director Barb Munson's farm and painting skull and cross bones on black t shirts and making other props (like fake knives) throughout the afternoon.


For me there are two things that make theatre the treasure that it is. The first is the imagination of telling a story and showing it to other people. The second is the camaraderie that one feels when one is in an ensemble of actors and everyone's contributing in one way or another. I've had that a few times in my life and this was one of those experiences and it was really cool that it was my first 'real' show.