It’s the end of an era for us. The past six years have seen high school productions too numerous to mention. I have built some of the oddest things in an effort to make these plays look professional on a shoestring budget: A revolving 24 foot by 36 foot structure that ripped the curtain and nearly fell into the front row, prison cells out of PVC, and a toilet stall that doubled as a judges bench when viewed from the other side. But now we are officially finished with high school theatre because our final actress has kissed the stage.

Her name is Kendall but her little toddler friend called her Cookie and it stuck. Cookie amazes me. She is a fighter, she is introspective, beautiful, bright, creative, and fiercely loyal. Cookie is an extremely hard worker and I have no doubt she will be successful at whatever she chooses because she will either kick down the obstacles or figure out an ingenious way to ignite them. One of my fondest memories is when mom picked her up on first day of first grade. She bounded out of her classroom and suddenly realized something had gone terribly wrong. She grabbed the doorway to stop her momentum and cried, “Wait! They forgot to teach me how to read!” Read More