ashes + wine

a love letter to the little theater that saved me

The humanities traditionally house the values that make life worth living, that make existence more than mere material survival and progress, that by definition can’t be measured or quantified. -Mary Klages

It was 2001 and I was an utter disaster. My late teens and early twenties marked a significant period in my life defined by impulsivity and poor decisions. And I was fresh off of my latest episode.

I had just moved back to the small Missouri town I grew up in from Arlington, VA — where I had lived for a few months with my emotionally abusive Marine boyfriend. Upon learning that I didn’t plan to marry him and follow him all over the world — he put me on notice and I had two weeks to GTFO of his apartment.

Saved by my parents for a change — all of the necessary arrangements were made to get me and all of my things on a truck back to Missouri. And just like that, I was back at my mom’s.

I trudged through a solid depression with no plan. I was working at my dad’s restaurant every day and drinking excessively every night. My shortlist of possible life paths consisted of:

1. Auditioning to be Jasmine at Disney World or

2. Becoming a stripper

There was no in-between.

Not until I learned of the theatre scholarship program at the local community college. I had done a couple of shows with the community theater before but didn’t know the college offered a scholarship for it.

College was not on my radar as something I’d ever do in my life. My parents didn’t have the money and I didn’t care enough about it (or anything really in those days) to try to figure it out. But I snagged an interview and despite the director's concern for my “happy feet” — his exact words, in reference to my impulsive nature to just bounce out of any situation — he offered me the scholarship.

And that was the first time the little theater saved me.

My home life was chaotic at best which made it difficult to focus on academics. The theater gave me something concrete to stand in and somewhere to belong. It was quite literally the only constant I had and my classes were just something I had to loosely participate in as the price of admission.

I took my classes just about as seriously as I took anything else during that era of my life — which was not very. And even though I (mostly) showed up for class and got (barely) passing grades — the value I found within those walls rested in the stability it provided me and in the relationships, I formed along the way.

Not too long after my college career began, my mom met and married a man she found on the internet. Despite the pleas from my sister and me to please not move a strange man into our home — she did anyway. I could write thousands of words about this subject and maybe I will one day, but today won’t be that day. Just trust that it was a nightmare.

As this cyber psycho from Ohio invaded my life, my actual dad accidentally moved to California when he flew out to LA to be on the Judge Joe Brown show and just never came home.

The life vibe I was rocking at the time was clearly — “an entire circus, but also engulfed in flames”.

To absolutely no one's surprise — except maybe my mom’s — internet husband turned out to be a rotten trash can. He was a thief. And heavily addicted to pain pills, Pepsi, and apparently young Filipina women — a super fun fact I didn’t learn until much later.

One night, in his default state of pill-induced stupidity, he — a whole entire grown-up — got in my teenage face and tried to pull the ‘stepdad’ card. He was attempting to start a physical fight with me because my music was “too loud”. So, instead of shoving him down the stairs like I wanted to — I threw everything that would fit into the backseat of my car and left.

My original plan was to just quit school and drive back to Virginia to crash on friends' couches.

See — told you I was a runner.

But I didn’t make it far before my fellow theatre major and best friend (now husband) intervened and begged me to stay. He had this insane idea for me to stay with another theatre student — one whom I barely knew.

Somehow, this dude agreed to let an excitable and unstable stranger invade his whole life, and with it began an entire era. An era of all-nighters and inside jokes. Too much Jack in the Box and never enough sleep — but always a good time.

I don’t think I will ever be able to listen to Goodnight my Someone from The Music Man without imagining the highest-pitched, most blood-curdling screams of horror in the background, and tbh, I never want to.

Seriously do it and try not to pee your pants laughing.

Idk, maybe you had to be there deliriously painting a set at 2 AM — but it kills me.

I found so much joy and spent so many hours laughing in that building that I barely remembered that my life at home was catastrophic.

Again, the theater saved me — in spite of my own self.

And as they say, the rest is history. I fell in love with my husband on that stage and made friendships that are still going strong as I type this.

My children would not exist if it weren’t for the time I spent there and honestly, I can’t be sure that I would still exist without it either.

So while I didn’t go on to get an advanced Theatre degree or build a life in the industry — I survived some of the most difficult days of my life. And for that, I will be forever in debt.

We got the devastating news in November that this little theater would close its doors for good at the end of May. After 50 entire years of service to this community — the people who make the decisions just can’t recognize the value of this theatre program over that of padding their athletics department.

We organized, sent emails, and signed petitions. We showed up at board meetings and met with the president of the college. It all fell upon deaf ears.

In the end, just as anything that struggles to exist within this capitalistic machine, it came down to the dollars. And those available dollars went to fancy new charter busses for mediocre college sports teams.

Our tender misfit hearts collectively broke in unison as we realized that the little theater we all loved so much was inevitably ashes and wine.

The future of theatre programs all over the country is bleak in the midst of our pandemic purgatory — and it is to all of our detriment.

Keeping these entities alive is essential in providing a space for the outcasts and the others. They are places of refuge for kids who battle bullies, for kids who live with special needs, and for kids who struggle with their mental health.

And sometimes, it's just a safe place for a broken teenager to catch a couple hours sleep in the seats before class starts after coming straight off the graveyard shift.

I write this today with tears falling and an ache in my heart that won’t quit. And I know I’m not the only one.

I grieve for the kids who will need this program in the delicate years ahead.

The kids who in it, could have found a place to survive and thrive during this pandemic-induced mental health crisis we are facing.

Kids who instead will stay isolated, misunderstood, and continue to wander lost.