A Love Letter to the Cast and Crew of The Secret Garden

Now that the show has wrapped and we find ourselves shifting back into our day-to-day lives, I wanted to take one last moment to tell you what this experience (and you, in particular) have meant to me. I hope you'll always know how proud you made me. Regardless of whether you had a starring role or a behind-the-scenes one, regardless of whether you performed your part perfectly or tripped up from time to time, regardless of whether you're a veteran of the stage or went into the experience blind. In the end, you were exactly who you needed to be and I'll be forever grateful that you helped bring my vision to life. I chose a play with difficult music and an ambitious set, and despite having moments of doubt, you humored me anyway and saw it through. It takes enormous courage to put yourself in a director's hands and trust that they know how to translate a show from page to stage. It takes even more courage to make that leap of faith with a first-time director whom you've just met.

As you know, our production faced many obstacles. We sacrificed a week or two of rehearsals in the beginning just trying to recruit enough people to fill out our cast. Because of this, many of you were placed into roles well beyond your comfort zone or stretched thin while you played both cast and crew. You were patient with me while I attempted to balance being a psychologist all day and a director all night, just as I was patient with you when you had other obligations that needed your time and attention. And somehow in spite of those early growing pains, you turned out to be so incredibly loyal to this show and your dedication continues to inspire me. You'll never know the joy I took in watching how much you grew during this production--how you tended to one another throughout the process to bring out one another's potential, how you problem-solved as a team when changing scenes or fixing lights or harmonizing chords, how you pushed through your self-consciousness to deliver for your fellow actors. We were certainly fortunate to have so much talent in our cast and crew, but at the end of the day, I choose to believe it was ultimately your hard work that got us there. There were no shortcuts or tricks--it came down to your willingness to put in long hours of practice and sweat until we got it right. 

Whether as a director or a member of the theater board, I will do everything in my power in the future to find you the audience you deserve. There are many potential reasons for the low turn-out and these are not your problems to solve. The number of people filling the seats is not a statement of your worth up there on the stage. Summers are busy and we have to compete with other events and family obligations, but I also suspect we can get to the bottom of these obstacles and build community theater back into something which people will want to both participate in and attend. In my efforts to grow a play, I thought I could just sprinkle enough seeds around and the garden would appear. As we now know, it took a lot more tending and patience to bring this garden to life. But in the end, no matter what my initial vision, I can't imagine having picked anyone but you.

St. James Plaindealer Article

Opening a Secret Garden to St. James