Miracle Kid

Many of us can attribute our path to the theater to a dynamic teacher in school: the teacher that inspired us or showed us a new side of ourselves. This series is a snapshot of today's high school theater educators across the country sharing about what they do and how and why they do this work.

For the past twenty plus years I have been teaching theater in small-town Texas. Teaching theater in a rural school is sometimes a challenge. Theater is not always held in high regard and it is always second best to sports of any kind. But for some kids, theater is their home. It’s the thing that shapes them, saves them, and helps them escape to a better life.

My husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to teach theater together for several years. He was the Technical Director and I worked with the actors. We taught, directed, nurtured, and guided hundreds of kids, some amazing and a few you’d like to forget. Then about 10 years ago that one-in-a-million kid walked into our theater program and changed our lives.

He almost didn’t make it into our program. When we first heard about him it was the day that we traveled to our junior high school feeder program to hold “auditions” with the eighth graders who would be joining us the following year. They were all nervous and giggling and awkward. But he was missing that day. He had gotten into some sort of trouble at school and had to spend the day in In-School Suspension. Just what we needed in our theater department: a trouble maker. But his junior high director assured me that he was still interested, that he would make a special trip on his own over to the high school to audition. She said he was a diamond in the rough and just needed a little polishing.

So a few days later he arrived by himself in my classroom ready to audition. He was a tall, skinny, black kid with a thick Texas accent. He poured his heart out in an 8th-grade quality rendition of August Wilson’s Fences. He had the thickest country drawl you ever heard, but he smiled a lot and charmed his way into the advanced acting class. 

When we returned to school in the fall, he joined our department with more enthusiasm and focus than you’ve ever seen from any freshman student. Of course he wanted to be an actor, but very quickly we realized that his real talent was getting other people to do what he wanted them to do. This kid just radiated charisma and confidence, so we made him assistant stage manager for our big fall musical. He wasn’t afraid to boss around the senior actors, he did anything you asked of him, and he worked harder than anyone in the cast. He completely won us over.

From that point on, he was a permanent fixture in our department. He was in every single show that our department produced over the 4 years that he was in high school. He tried nearly every tech job and mastered many, but he was a natural born stage manager. He was organized, motivated, and driven. He had that uncanny, un-teachable ability to see what needed to be done and just did it. He ran for theater officer and was our troupe president for his junior and senior years. He also ran for the Texas Thespian State Board and served for 3 years. He was Homecoming King and Prom King and Senior Class Favorite. When he wasn’t doing theater, he had the craziest alter ego: a rodeo champion. He’d go out on the weekends, rope some bulls, and win some prizes so he’d have a little spending money. Then on Monday it was back to theater rehearsals. He was a go-getter to the extreme.

On the surface, he was a remarkably well-adjusted kid with a great personality and diligent work ethic. But the side of his life that you didn’t see is what really made him truly remarkable.

He was poor. Not just sort of poor. Really poor. He lived in a small trailer on an isolated piece of land, too close to a highway. Sometimes they had running water, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they had electricity, sometimes they didn’t. When he asked people to drive him home (because he never had a ride), he’d have them stop far enough away from his house so they wouldn’t be able to see where he really lived. He’d walk the rest of the way home in the dark or rain. He moved a lot, living with other relatives or friends of the family. Sometimes Mom was around, sometimes she wasn’t. Dad had never been around and made it clear that he never wanted to be.

Most people didn’t know about this side of his life. He did his best to hide it. He was always dressed neatly, jeans pressed and starched. But sometimes real life would creep into his theater world. He’d come into my office and have a good cry when he needed it. Those days just broke my heart, and more than once my husband and I talked about taking him home with us. After all, he had basically become like a son to us. We’d gotten to know him better than any student we’d ever directed. His favorite color was red, he loved Skittles, and he always put 10 sugar packets in his iced tea. We drove him home; we took him out to eat. He ate his first Rueben sandwich on a trip with us. He didn’t like it. We even drove him all the way to Nebraska for his college scholarship auditions at the International Thespian Festival. Which he rocked, by the way.

By his junior year he had already decided he wanted to study theater in college. He wanted to be a professional stage manager. He chose the school he wanted to attend and, as with everything he did, he started executing a plan to make it happen. Midway through his senior year, he had been accepted into that school and had won the Gates Millennium Scholarship which guaranteed that his entire college degree would be paid for.

If it sounds like everything came easily to him, you’re wrong. I’m still amazed by his tenacity. He could come to school some days with no food in his stomach and no sleep because there was too much fighting in his house through the night, and still his smile would brighten up my day. He deserved every good thing that came to him, every contest won, every honor given. He earned them all.

I’m still amazed by his tenacity. He could come to school some days with no food in his stomach and no sleep because there was too much fighting in his house through the night, and still his smile would brighten up my day.

It was incredibly hard on us when he graduated. First of all, I was completely lost without him as my stage manager. I had become very spoiled in those four years. But I also missed my son. I missed his company and his place in our theater family. When he moved on to college, we felt an emptiness in our home. The love he nurtured in us definitely influenced our decision to adopt a child of our own. Before him, we never wanted a child of our own. After him, we couldn’t imagine life without one. The year after he graduated my husband and I brought home a baby girl from China. We now have six adopted children. And it all sort of started with him.

A graduate of a prestigious theatre conservatory, he is now working as a stage manager on Broadway. Can you believe that!?! From Small Town, USA to New York, New York! From walking home in the rain to mingling with celebrities! We couldn’t be more proud and it couldn’t have happened to a better person. I left his name off this story because I don’t think most people in his professional circle know just how humble a start he had. If you met him today, you would have no idea. He is so polished and poised, but also still so hardworking and joyful. He really is that rags to riches story. A miracle kid who pulled himself up by his Texas cowboy bootstraps and wrote his own success story.

I’m so lucky to be even one small chapter in his book. Every theater teacher should be blessed by at least one miracle kid like him. He had talent, charm, smarts, but his greatest gift was teaching me how to be a mom.