"Promise, I did, if a white board, I had, a lesson, in Latin, on Saturday. And deliver, I did not. Do this, now, I do, because, about the serious Broadway Knight Theatre Academy students, a great deal, I do care." Put another way . . .
Now let me dispel a few rumors so they don't fester into facts. Yes, I have taught drama in Indian River School District on and off for quite some time. And no, at the beginning, I was not the theatrical giant you see before you at Georgetown Middle School. In the beginning, I was the dramatic equivalent of a ninety-eight pound weakling. I would go to the beach and people would kick Shakepearean plays in my face.
As an educator, as far as I'm concerned, teaching you is a battle, a war. And if I fail, the casualties could be your hearts and souls . . . your minds. Robert Herrick wrote, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying." The Latin term for that sentiment, my young Jedis and Padawan Learners, is Carpe Diem . . . put another way: seize the day.
Consider the great actors when they were in school. They weren't that different from you. Filled with hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world was their oyster. They believed they were destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes were full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? They seized the day. They made their lives extraordinary.
I appreciate the sacrifices, the difficult choices many of you make to come to Enrichment, to get up early for Saturday school when you don't feel like it, to memorize pages and pages of lines, to sit impatiently by while students of less ability are being instructed, to allow yourselves to be publicly critiqued. It takes courage. It proves that you understand the concept of Carpe Diem.
Those of us who are serious about the theater don't study drama because it's always fun. We invest ourselves because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, drama, are not idle entertainments, these are the things for which we stay alive. To paraphrase Walt Whitman: "O me, o life of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, o me, o life? Answer: that you are here. That life exists, and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a scene. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a scene." What will your scene be?
PS: Only a SERIOUS academy student will have bothered to read this far. And to you I say, studying drama is worth it. Not for the applause which fades as soon as the house lights come up. But for the life experience you gain, for the expansion of your imagination, for the opportunity to become better human beings- people willing to offer their lives as a gift to those too afraid to live life, too scared to seize the day for themselves.
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