Knowing Your Cast

My play rehearsals are going well. One thing I've discovered is that no matter how much you plan and anticipate what people will do, they will usually surprise you.

The biggest surprise is my having forgotten how uncomfortable it can be to be 10 to 15 years old and have to play like you're in love. Or even say the words.

Although today's films and television are filled with romance and relationships, when it comes to the real thing, it's still amazing how much kids take stage relationships to a serious level.

They can play a butterfly or a dog or an old man or a stagecoach driver on stage, and when the curtain is closed, they leave the character back on the stage. But when a relationship is part of their character, there seems to be an inclination for kids to take it (i.e., boyfriend and girlfriend) with them, with the fear that their family and peers will transfer it to real life, when it's not.

So, in the production I'm doing of my Christmas play, I have the two casts, one of all kids and the other of adults playing the adult parts with two teens playing the teen parts. The teen parts are supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and actually living together (although they may be late teens or early twenties).

In the all kid cast, they were fine (and even encouraged me) to cut any of the "love" lines, while the two kids in the adult cast were okay with leaving them in. The younger cast even suggested that I make them siblings rather than a couple, but I didn't go that far.

The point for me is that if these kids are uncomfortable with these lines, and my market for this play is to include middle and high schools, then I need to take their comfort issues very seriously if I expect schools to produce the play, which otherwise, I think has a lot of appeal for that age group.