All I knew about Moliere, I learned from the Breakfast Club.

I'm not sure how I got out of reading any of Moliere's work in school, but I did. I wish I'd been more exposed. This afternoon I went to a high school drama department's adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid featuring a friend's daughter in a starring role. She was amazing, and except for one flubbed scene (not hers) which resulted in the other actor saving the day, it was... Well, it was pretty much what you'd expect of a high school drama department performing a Moliere play.

During the performance, I was taken back to my high school days of stage crewing for 42nd Street, Guys & Dolls, Dracula, Brigadoon and Our Town.* Being on stage crew was way more fun to me than being on the stage itself. We used to stand behind the curtain and mock the actors, we had all the dances memorized and performed them (quite poorly, I might add) behind the scenes, we had massage circles on both sides of the stage during a particular scene of each show, and we got to wear all black. We had a time.

But the best part each time was the cast party the last night of the show. About 20 or 30 kids would hole up in some unfortunate parents' house, where we would spend the next 12 hours or so drinking Coke, playing pool and cards, flirting (as high school kids are wont to do) and basically just bonding with each other. There was never alcohol or drugs - or if there was I didn't know about it - it was just good clean fun, for one night every six months or so, the pretentious drama students interacting with the stage crew dorks and band geeks in total unadulterated harmony.**

I kind of wish I'd stuck with it throughout college, but I didn't. Maybe I lost my tolerance for showtunes. Maybe I didn't want to taint the great experiences I had in high school. Maybe I was just lazy.

Yeah, that's probably it.

Anyway - support your local high school theater performances! You're pretty much all they have left these days...

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* Really now, is there a high school drama department that hasn't done Our Town?

** I will go to hell for all these stereotypes, I'm sure. Not saying they are always true, but trust me, at my high school they were. 100% of the time. Well... except for that hot drummer I had a crush on for 3 years.