Barbara--an essay for perpich kids

There were two teachers at the arts high school who taught theatre. As an in coming junior you’d first meat Barbara Morin, and then alternate by semester between her, and Tory Peterson. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be in constant contact with eleventh and twelfth graders, they could both certainly tell you- Theatre classes often run late into the night when Dress rehearsals roll around. Spending eight hours strait with our class was not uncommon—doing multiple run throughs and additional blocking or scene rehearsals. Barbara was always very motherly with our class. I guess it was silly of me to ask her if she remembered our class,
“Oh yes we loved your theatre class so much, some people still ask about your class. One of the student’s just the other week asked me if we liked their class better than the juniors, and of course you can’t answer that. I just said, ‘we like your class very much’ and she asked ‘You liked Dani Tope’s class don’t you? Tory liked that class too.’” Barbara paused and laughed. “You guys were so nice to each other, no little divided groups, you were very joyful.” I couldn’t help but think about Dani at this point, she had been my room mate when I first moved into the school’s Delta Dorm. I eventually wrote her a song, it went ‘Little Dani Tope, Little Dani Tope! So itty bitty, little Dani Tope!’ She was very slight, but had quite the prowess about her. I remember the first Halloween in the Dorms I went trick or Treating with another theatre girl named Mallory, while Jenn and Jen took Dani to a visual arts kid’s house, Ryan, and with a few other kids, got her high for the first time. Later I saw a video clip from it, she was wearing large clown shoes, and talking about cannibal babies, eating off breasts instead of breast feeding… or perhaps quite literally breast feeding.
I sat with the cell phone against my ear. How strange, I thought. I’d expected to feel awkward talking to Barbara after so long but, as always, she made me feel incredibly at ease. I couldn’t help but asking the typical question of her, my curiosity was growing like weeds. “Is there anything about Perpich you think people tend to miss? Or not understand… like, a common misconception?
“Not really. I guess Tory says the general Twin Cities’ impression is that kids take a lot of drugs here, but it’s really no different from any other school. Ten years ago I guess there was a dealer dealing in parking lot at the dorms but whoever it was graduated and left. In the last twenty years I’ve been here that’s the only time I can ever think there was a problem, you know, a kid came to school high, another one was hiding under desks. Sometimes people seem to think every one at an art school is funky and strange… but I think it’s more of a projecting onto the school of what people think of artists, or the thoughts that ‘Oh they do really weird theatre there.’ Well, it is off broadway, but it’s been around for 30 40 years, it’s nothing extremely weird, it’s just that most high schools are still doing theatre from the 50s. We have a goal to do plays that make use of the whole ensemble, the whole company; not two leads—everyone is there to learn and grow.” She went on to say that in reality the art high was really full of well behaved, reflective children –very kind to each other. I told her the school was like an incubator, she said it was a womb. I told her about the rowdy crowd at college,
“At Perpich, no one thinks it’s funny to rip up the art on the walls, and no one steals your shit,” I say. She sighs, and says it’s hard to believe that Perpich has its own little world, separate. The truth is, it sort of does—it’s unusually free. The atmosphere of acceptance can be over whelming, and as a female with a female majority I think it helped some insecurities I’d had.
Barbara has the light pattern of wrinkles that make me think she’s lived a full life even with so much time left in front of her. She wears glasses, with slim silver frames, and I can distinctly recall a pair of wide hoop earrings she’s wear against her short blond hair. She wore denim jackets, she wore kakis, she wore rabbit ear hats. She use to be a kid, and still, in most cases, still was. Yet she had the three steps away that every teacher seemed to at the arts high. She barely recalled the hicky wars that four of the girls in our class participated in. Lauren and Jen for sure, and I believe also Dani… But I do remember the purples and reds and fading banana yellows all over their necks, chests, and even legs. I don’t know who won, but I know Barbara finally put a stop to it for the sake of the up and coming performance.
I guess it makes sense, I remember who liked who, who dated who, and what went on behind the curtains… and Barbara remembers the basics of any new Junior class, like, the first month is always awkward, and trying to get to know an entire 15-20 loud eccentric kids in time to get them into a theatre group. She says she’s given up trying to make judgments until after the first two months, “You either need time for them to drop their mask, or time for you to acclimate to their, sort of, strange seeming behavior,” she’d said tentatively. She’s right in saying that Theatre is an entirely different way of interaction. “I wish all of life was like theatre, like making a play. I guess it is, but there’s some thing elevated about the interaction that’s good for every body. It’s a different form any other kind of social interaction. You talk about important things to the human experience, it requires us all to be thoughtful and have fun at the same time. It’s not the typical ragging on about personal problems, and no one tries to over step boundaries because usually every one wants to do well. It’s a really interesting process.”
I myself remember that, not knowing these kids, and being plunged in for better or worse as a group. You can make or break a scene based on one interaction, so despite who does or doesn’t get along, we all hunker together. Despite all likely hood for the average sixteen-year old self-absorbed kid, we all bonded, and succeeded. There were several difficult situations, scenes with a lot of trust involved. Being movement theatre, there were times when we’d lift Jen, or Dani, high over our heads, and carry her about the stage. We were in close tumbling physical contact.. of course, that brings about another issue all together.
It is officially on Barbara’s syllabus, in order to let people know before it happens, that in the performing arts one can’t come to class really… smelly. You must bathe, wear clean clothes, and throw out wear rotten shoes. If one chooses not to follow this rule she will talk to you and the nurse will talk to you until you understand that you really need to be clean—you will not be allowed into the classroom, if you are noticeably odiferous. Similar situations have come up over the year with distractions of women who decide not to wear bras, or men who decide that maybe the gaping hole in the crotch of their pant’s isn’t as noticeable as they think. “You have to remember,” she said to me, sproaching the end of our conversation, “teenagers are extremely self absorbed, though at the arts high it’s a little less, they’re a little more tuned in.”