The big show

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles marking the 50th Anniversary of Hartselle City Schools.

Hartselle’s schools offer their students the opportunity to learn how audience members respond to performers and how performers entertain or inform their audiences from the stage.

Science shows, dramatic or comedic plays, musicians, visiting authors and illustrators, animal shows… all of these create opportunities for students to learn something new from someone new or opportunities for them to be entertained by those who bring to their experiences sights and sounds that are not part of a typical school day. They enrich, and they create memories.

I can still clearly remember the snake and reptile show and Toby Ticklebritches that were part of my own FEB school experience. Each year when the largest of the snakes was brought out and stretched across the stage at the snake and reptile show, the handler would caution us that he was going to hold on to that snake as best he could, but that he was a feisty thing and might just try to escape.

We would all be on edge as he wrangled the unruly reptile from its carrier and clambored to hang on to it.

We could take a collective deep breath when he finally managed to gain full control of that scary beast. It never struck any of us as odd that his concerns and the final undercontrol moment were the same as they were in the production the year before. And in the one in the year before that one.

And Toby Ticklebritches was a joy. I know now that Mr. Ticklebritches performed that act in numerous schools across numerous states, but at the time I thought he brought happiness only to us kids at F.E. Burleson Elementary School. As soon as it was announced that he would be performing from that stage in our gymatorium, I began looking forward to the show. During the performance I committed to memory as many of his jokes and gags as I could in order to share them with my mother and daddy and relive the act again at our dinner table.

The attempt to create a memory was a successful one, but the shows additionally gave me an opportunity to sit in an audience. There were also performances by my fellow students that I was permitted to view. Consider that school performances are the first ones that many students see. Just a few years ago it was likely that most elementary-aged students would have at least seen a movie in a theater, but even that is now less likely. School is the place to learn how to be a part of an audience.

Choral productions, talent shows, school plays, and the like provide students with an opportunity to be the talent on the stage. Some of Hartselle’s kids arrive at school knowing they can sing or dance or move others with their words and actions, but many of them learn of their talents as a result of the opportunities on the school stage. It begins in elementary school where all students get at least one moment in front of the entire student body, then as students get older the opportunities are tied more to their electives and to those activities that bring them joy.

By the time these students are in high school, their talent can be quite impressive. If you have been to a band or choral concert or to a school play or even to the skits that are part of the high school’s Homecoming competition, you know that real talent lies in those students’ souls.

I doubt that even one former choral or band or drama student can reminisce for five minutes about his or her school days without landing on a story of a performance or of readying for a performance. But not only are their school days enriched by the experiences, many of them continue to perform in one way or another for the remainder of their lives.

And so our schools play a role in preparing us for the big show in the schoolhouse and in preparing us for the many days that will pass long after we walk across the Commencement stage and then toss our caps in the air. You know. Life– the really big show.