One of the highlights for Handley this past week was undoubtedly the culmination of our very own High School Musical, “The Fantasticks.” The production began as Tim, one of my good friends from elementary school, begin singing, begging the audience to “try to remember the kind of September when grass was green and grain was yellow.” For years Tim has patiently awaited his opportunity to be a lead in the musical, and I knew his presence onstage was definitely a right of passage and personal victory for him. Hearing him now belt show tunes reminded me of countless rounds of “Build Me Up Buttercup” we’d sung so many times before. His stage presence was not new to me, as I’ve grown with him through the years through classes, clubs and late night sessions of hot chocolate on the band hill. I didn’t need the playbill to know Tim’s story, nor any of the other actors’ on stage.
The beauty of Handley being a relatively small school is the fact that upon attending an athletic competition, school event or show such as this, there will always be someone with whom you can identify. In the case of this musical, the lead actors included a boy who my family has known since birth, and a girl who shadowed me for a day as her family considered moving to Winchester. Caleb, the boy, has been enamored with musicals since childhood, always being a huge fan of “The Wizard of Oz.” It was in his living room where I first tried the candy Nerds and even spent a week at his house when my parents were out of town. Additionally, I distinctly remember when I was a freshman showing Rachel (then an eighth grader) around the school and when asked about her favorite activities, she replied music and theater. Seeing her perform as a lead only two years after first visiting our school was a physical reminder of how much her confidence had grown in those short years.
During the production as I sat next to a girl I baby-sit, I had to remind myself that to her eyes these actors seemed extremely mature. Knowing these people for such a long time sometimes hinders my ability to fully appreciate how much they’ve developed in recent years. As Tim sang, I “(tried) to remember a kind of September when (he) was a tender and callow fellow,” and knew that despite his stellar performance, to me he would always be the fifth grader playing in the creek and singing “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
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