A Note from the Director
This is the 43rd show that I’ve directed at Warde in the past 24 years. I lost two to cancer and two to Covid and one to attend to my own sanity. I’ve grown from being a guy directing stuff into a true director. Into the Woods, which I’ve done three times here, was my first musical. Ever. I had directed plays but not musicals and so in ignorance I jumped. Bobby Hodgeson, the first of my Bakers, said, “Are you sure we can do this?” “No,” I answered, “but if you’re going to fail, fail big.” We didn’t fail. But we did come close.
I have become an artist while here. My third Into the Woods was when I got it right. When I had learned enough to coax the best out of the kids. To know how to express and see more fully. Fairfield has given me the opportunity to grow into this. And the kids here have been great throughout those years. They have given magnificent performances, and even when they haven’t, they have grown. My goal has never been to train professionals, but to give confidence and pride, and based on what they’ve said to me over the years, I have succeeded in this.
The Secret Garden was the musical stolen from me originally by cancer. I cast and started directing the show about 15 years ago, and then landed in the hospital for months. The show went on without me, saved by a great student stage manager. (Thank you, Emily Callahan.) But I was not a part of it. So I’ve returned to it my final year because despite its flaws (the worst stage direction: “They disappear.” The entire set of dreamers, at once. Really?) it has beautiful things to say about love, loss, grief, and healing. Are the ghosts real? Wrong question. We carry the ghosts with us inside. The haunting is inside. Letting go and moving on is not the same as forgetting. It’s accepting what is and planting for the future. The garden is inside, too. This will all make sense when you see the show beautifully sung and acted by this wonderful group.
So, thank you, Warde, for letting me have this time to become my best self as a teacher, director, and artist. And thanks to all the kids (Bobby Hodgeson would be 42 now) who have let me be a second father, uncle, mentor, and grandfather to them. You will be what I miss most.
