My name is Marc Laroy and welcome to my first blog! I am a drama teacher who loves to help inspire his students with exciting anecdotes. In the 25 years I have been on this Earth, I have experienced many things: love, loss, excitements, chills, spills and everything in between. Recently, I had to have a discussion with my students about what it meant to be a leader. My colleague opened and, as a means to back up and support her, I began to tell my students a story. In the two years that they have known me, my students realize one thing: I have a story for everything! However, many students will tell you that my stories always have a lesson to go along with it. Some are deep and profound while others are probably more enjoyment than anything else. It occurred to me that stories, like the one I told my students the other day, could help people from making horrible choices or at least understand what their decision might lead to. So I asked myself;
"Why should my students be the only ones who benefit from my stories?"
And so, here I am, on this day off from school, to write my first entry and my first story.
As you will learn, I am an currently a part time actor. I have every intention of going back into acting full time, but I made a promise to God a long time ago that I would help kids they way that I needed help and guidance when I was younger (a story I shall share later, I'm sure).
My story begins a year before the "affair" actually happens when, at Anderson University, my mentor, Dr. Mac, decided to announce next year's season. I was a 2nd year senior due to my double major, so I was anxious to hear what the next season would be! We would start with the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, a play called As it is In Heaven, An unknown "black play" (She never called it a black play. I called it that because...that's what it was supposed to be. It ended up being the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), and to end with Macbeth (which I jumped in the air in excitement over... I was the ONLY one who jumped for excitement). The air was full of buzz, but not over Macbeth or As it is in Heaven, but over Thoroughly Modern Millie. I had no idea what the play was about other than the fact that it was a musical.
I despise Musicals.
Not that THAT is out of the way, let me explain. I don't REALLY "despise" musicals. I just hate how they are directed. I don't think I've ever learned anything from a musical other than that they are hard and, at times, fun once the show is in full swing. My mentor, ironically, loved musicals and to this day is still making Anderson musical theatre department a gem of the south. I had been at Anderson for quite some time and I knew that it would be all hands on deck for our female dominated (about 80-90%) department.
The lead-in to the auditions is where our story TRULY takes place. The girls were so convinced that one of them would be Millie that you would think she was the ONLY girl in the whole play. For those of you who don't know the plot here is a condensed version: a country girl comes to NYC in order to meet the (rich) man of her dreams. She thinks she's found the man, but starts to develop feelings for a (poor) man. Millie is torn, but ultimately decides to go with the poor man because she realizes that it doesn't matter how much money you have because love conquers all........ Until the end when the man reveals that he actually is rich probably making her forget the important lesson she just learned.
To me? I didn't think much of the plot. But what do I know? One of my favorite playwrights wrote Romeo and Juliet (ugh!). But, back to the story!
The girls were becoming very catty with each other to the point that you didn't even recognize some of the female drama majors anymore. All they could think about was how horrible that girl would be if she was Millie and why they were the ONLY person who could perform Millie justice. In the center of this was a friend of mine. For the sake of confidentiality to those who don't know her, as she is an actor, I will simply call her Eliza. Eliza and I were friends since we performed together in the play All My Sons. I thought she was quite talented and I quickly learned how much she had wanted to play Millie. She practiced her singing and tap skills from morning until late at night. She listened to the music and had even come up with a back-story already. If you didn't know, she was already cast! This behavior rubbed a lot of girls the wrong way and soon she was attacked. People thought that she was being presumptuous in thinking she was going to be Millie and, as a result, began a campaign to tear her down by speaking cruelly behind her back.
The girls of our department were known to choose sides and sadly for Eliza, she was left in the cold with no one. Not to say that she was a saint in all this. A person can only take so much hate before they will feel the need to retaliate. As Eliza's stock fell, the mob attacked whichever girl seemed to rise. After a while, every girl was left as hurt as Eliza and, to prove them wrong, every girl worked hard to try and become cast as Millie.
In the midst of all this was my (little) baby sister. She was not really my sister at all, but since her Freshmen year I took it upon myself to have her back. My sister wanted to be cast as Millie as well, but I never heard much from her (whether because she honestly said nothing or because I didn't want to is beyond me), but when it came time for auditions she was the one who was cast in the end!
Sadly the story does not have a truly happy ending. You see, folks, when you're that mean and hateful for so long towards people you called friends, the dynamic of whatever group you're in changes. People don't trust as easily or they no longer stay friends. During the production of the play, people of the cast could still see and feel the remnants of hurt feelings and disdain for one another. Sure, the show ended up being a huge hit, but at what cost? The unity of a strong group of friends had been broken and in its place, factions had arisen that seemed to rear its ugly head at every audition.
Audience, I don't expect you to love the people you work with. But there are few things in life that you will accomplish something solely by yourself. You need your friends or, at the very least, co-workers to stand with you in order to complete what is laid out before you. Be proud of the fact that you were a part of something great not that you assisted in making something vile. I know, it's hard when so many people are around you saying hurtful things and you don't want attention turned on you, but one thing myself and a few others wished we had done was step in more instead of waiting for people see what they were doing was wrong.
Moral:
