Godspell, 11 Years Later

Have you ever just been sitting at home on a rainy afternoon and seen or heard something that just triggers a whole bunch of memories? I’m not talking about running into your ex and remembering why you broke up with them, I’m talking about the happier side of things, where you remember some of the best times of your childhood in all the chaos of your adult life. Once that happens, you realize that you’d forgotten that time in your life and a whole host of memories start flooding back.

Okay, let me back up a little bit, say, 11 years? I was nine years old and in the third grade. I wouldn’t say I was shy, but I did try to hide behind other kids so you wouldn’t see me and talk to me. I had done a few dance recitals, Girl Scout campfire skits, and Christmas pageants, but I’d never even heard of a musical. My idea of a musical was all the Disney Princess movies where I forced my parents to tell the story while I acted them out. Looking back, that could have been a sign of my future. I’d seen Cinderella at the Cocoa Village Playhouse, but thought that was just a live-action Disney movie. Anyway, I was in the third grade and had joined the school/church choir when I heard about a musical the school was putting on. The play was being put on by the art teacher (Mrs. Finneran, who is still a good friend of mine) and the music teacher (Ms. Royhans). The play was Godspell, which was sort of a modernized, less-popular version of Jesus Christ Superstar.

I don’t really remember how I got involved in it. I’ve heard it was a game of Truth or Dare gone wrong (or right). I’ve heard I begged my mom to let me join. I’ve heard I only joined because my friends in my grade were joining. Either way, I signed up and marched into my first rehearsal. As soon as I got in there, I noticed a lot of the kids I sang with in choir. Most of them were in 6-8 grade, but they still took me under their wings and taught me how to read music. The one kid I really hung out with a lot was Danielle Bruchwalski, an eighth-grader who would sit next to me in choir, spend her five-minute recess with me at the corner of the basketball court, and helped explain the rehearsals for me. As time went on, I got to know a lot of the other middle-schoolers there who let me hang with them. (Let’s see if I remember them all-there was Danielle, obviously, Bri, Alex, Laurel, Mary, Kylie, Piper, Mack, Sherry, Kayla, I think Mirelle…)

Anyway, as the rehearsals went on, I discovered that I actually loved acting. I would try to find out everything I could about the other actors, what was going on behind the scenes, and the play itself. I’m pretty sure I got into trouble once for swiping someone’s script so I could read it and for digging through the props and putting them back in the wrong places (gasp!) another time. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only reason I know my parables is because about 90% of the play was telling and reenacting the parables of Jesus. I loved hanging with the actors, dressing up, putting on face paint, and essentially playing pretend.

When opening night finally happened, I was so late because I had my flying-up ceremony (where Brownie Girl Scouts become Juniors) and couldn’t get my face paint, so Danielle pretty much just rubbed her own face paint and spread it across mine. I just remembered-we didn’t have an auditorium at the time because the 2004 hurricanes destroyed our last one and the new one hadn’t been built yet, so we put the play on in the church. We had to run up the aisles for the opening scene and carry the lead down the aisle for the closing scene. I never really learned what the order of scenes were up until the Last Supper scene, but I knew what my cues and choreography for each song were (even though I had absolutely no idea what a cue was or what choreography was). Danielle would stick close to me for the duration of the show and help me figure out what was next in the play. Someone made the joke that she was a mother duck and I was her little duckling, following her around and learning from her. She was like my best friend on set.

After closing night, many of the middle-schoolers left my school and went to high school. I missed them all and still keep in touch with a few of them, but I really want to get in contact with Danielle and the others. For a while, I didn’t want to listen to the music from that play because of how much I missed the actors, but I finally was able to when I sang two songs from the show at the talent show four years later.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. I turned on the TV and started flipping through channels when I saw GODSPELL as one of the programs. When I selected that program, I suddenly remembered a whole bunch of anecdotes-things that sound stupid to everyone else, but were some of my favorite memories.

I remembered how we’d be rehearsing the scene where Jesus goes off to pray and the Apostles fall asleep, and all the girls would start whispering and giggling like we were at a slumber party. I remembered how one of my lines was “Yeah, yeah,” and how much joy I got out of saying that. I remembered all the middle-schoolers treating me like I was one of them, despite a 3-5 year age gap, and making me feel cool and like I belonged to something. I remembered all those silly memories where we’d be laughing at someone’s dumb line or how one of the boys had to cover for a girl in rehearsal, so he made his voice as high-pitched as possible to make us all laugh.

As soon as I sat down, I realized-that was eleven years ago! I’ve officially been acting for over ten years. It’s crazy to realize how time slips away and how quickly these things can fall out of your mind. As the program kept going on, I sang along and realized that I still remember all my lines and all of the songs. I don’t remember half of the stuff I learned in history class or science class from that age or who I sat next to, but I remember every word of every song from that play.

After Godspell, I just kept acting. I joined school plays, I did drama camps, and I even performed in my college’s musical. Even as an adult, if I don’t have a performance or rehearsal coming up, I start feeling restless and wondering what to do with myself. It’s crazy how a third-grade musical can have such an impact on a little girl.