Sally Huggins Toner

According to the latest research, the average human requires eight hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth.

On a related topic, when a play ends and the curtain closes, everything goes dark for a minute on the other side.  The human mass stands in black for a second, smelling of makeup and sweat, and then they cheer and embrace.

There’s a lot of hugging in theater.

This past week, the Broad Run theater department gave the gift of a time machine to this middle-aged broad.  Yes, I was a newspaper nerd.  But I was also a theater nerd back in the day.  At four-foot-nine, I was not the right physical type for many major roles, but I tried out for every production and, when I wasn’t cast, I did tech—which was very different in the 1980’s–basically a tape recorder and a phone ring machine activated on cue.  I worked the booth with a guy a grade ahead of me named Danny who had a full beard at 14 and I think was dating a divorcee with two small children by the time he was a senior.  One time, I lied to the director to get cast in The Madwoman of Chaillot, telling him I could juggle before teaching myself for real in the period of two weeks.  I had to toss the balls at various heights while two men discussed figures at a café table—up for the higher numbers, then down for the lower.  My performance was flawless the week leading up to opening night, including dress rehearsal.  Then I dropped balls on Friday and Saturday night.

Oh well, the show must go on.  In fact, my first foray into the dramatic arts was in the Norfolk City Summer theater program at age 11 when I was cast as the dog in Cinderella.

Yes, there is a dog in Cinderella.

Who needs to be Cinderella, or a stepsister, or a fairy godmother, when you can be…

The dog.

There is the adage: There are no small parts, only…ahem…small people.

Besides, they expanded the part of the dog so I could come onstage, play guitar, and sing Elvis.

Really.

I was also in all of the dance numbers, and if you think doing fifth position in a dog suit is easy…

But enough about me.  That’s not what the past week was about.  What it’s been about is being a part of the magic of theater in today’s high school and the reassertion that, yes, the kids are all right.

Broad Run had two small parts in the musical Newsises, and the director asked a colleague and me if we’d be interested in doing cameos.  “Limited rehearsal time,” he said.  “The kids would love it.”

How could I say no?  Especially since it didn’t involve a dog suit.  I got to be Mrs. Jacoby, the tavern owner where the Newsies got their watah and seltzah.  My colleague the social studies teacher played Teddy Roosevelt.

The week before a production, which we both needed to participate in fully, has two names.  One is “tech week,” since the kinks are worked out of lighting, sound, mics, blocking, and choreography. The choreography in Newsies was intricate, professionally managed by another colleague and some uber talented students, and—It. Was. Stunning. The other name given to this period of days?

Hell week.

Five-hour rehearsals, last-minute blocking changes, a fairly important ensemble member out with the flu, shouting, tears…

And hugs.  Always, lots of hugs.

There are theater traditions that stay backstage…the poems, the chants, the chandelier.  I’ve said too much.  I was honored, humbled, to bear witness to these young people lifting each other up.  They flew.  They literally flew.

It’s appropriate that I’m teaching the transcendentalists in my English 11 class right now.

It’s easy to despair in a world that is often too much with us.  I might have said this before. I’ll say it again. It is impossible to despair when I see the talent, the wisdom, the hard work, the excellence with a capital E that I observed up close this weekend.  They busted their asses.  They pushed themselves far past what they thought they were capable of.  And they did it, this cast of dozens upon dozens, together.  In the words of one of the song lyrics from the musical, just a piece of the mammoth script they memorized, “All for one and one for all.”

I was in the bathroom putting on make-up next to a couple of cast members when they began to sing “Take on Me” by a-ha. I, of course, joined in.

“Hey, babies, this is MY music, yo,” I teased, and we all laughed.

it’s true.  Those girls, their voices, singing that song from 1985—MY freshman year of high school.  Damn.  Time machine activated.  The thing is, when you teach, you get to experience those high school moments every single year.  Yup, all the drama, the pain, the shouting, the tears.

But you get to experience the magic too.  And there’s a lot of magic.  This is their time, those girls.  The world belongs to these young people who have all this talent, energy, and hope.  They pushed each other forward this weekend.  There were so many hugs.  I proclaim that the future is bright.

Because, in the midst of drama…

the kids are all right.