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Patti's Muse-ical

by Ginger

I know, I know, the title’s a little corny. But a muse is someone who inspires, and that is exactly who this blog is about...

Well, my extraordinary friend, Patti, and her team of extraordinary friends -- including Susan, Vicki, Jean, Theresa, Johnna and Lynn – have done it again! If you don’t know what “it” is, you have been missing some of the best children’s theater in Atlanta for the past half dozen years or so.

Let me start by saying that I realize many of you have not met Patti, or have ever even seen her. That’s because she never stands still. She’s a blur! It would take an entire month’s musing to tell you all about her, but suffice it to say that Patti is the kind of woman you’d want to be your friend because of her mind, her heart, her wit, her talent, and her ability to organize people into something powerful and wonderful and meaningful, which is what I’m about to tell you. (Oh yeah, and she makes incredible food.)

Patti is the volunteer director of DickersonMiddle School’s musical play. Yes, volunteer director. Let’s do the math: there are about 8700 hours in a year? I think she probably puts in about 2,000 volunteer hours a year. She starts by selecting a full-length score – no Junior version for Patti – and she reads it and thinks about it and tinkers with the staging and lines and parts so that she can include as many kids as possible in the show. Because that is Patti’s overriding mission: inclusion. And among middle school children, you know that can be a rare thing.

But while Patti is handing out parts and determining harmonies and adding dancing trees and baby-chick girl gangs and tap-dancing army dudes and multiple choruses… while she’s teaching kids about diction, projection, stage presence, expression, timing … while she’s working with her new best friends to create inventive music, choreography, costuming and staging … she’s also inspiring children to be the best they can be, and to support their cast mates in also being the best they can be. She’s building life-long friendships and memories that these children and their families will be talking about long after the last curtain call.

And most of all, Patti is taking a band of kids from all different walks of life and infusing them with the kind of self-esteem that will serve them well wherever they go from here; she’s taking jocks and preps and Goths and geeks and cheerleaders and ballerinas, independents and joiners, leaders and followers, “popular” kids and shy kids, and she’s building a team.  She’s teaching them inclusion.

Now, don’t get me wrong; it’s not always peace-love-and-flowers in Patti’s world. After all, it is middle school. Can you spell h-o-r-m-o-n-e-s? I mean, she has to deal with egos, temperaments, schedules, frustrations – and that’s just from the parents. J

But seriously, from the moment the curtain rises and you see the joy in the eyes of every single actor – be they tree or fish or lead cat – well, I’m in the geek squad so tears immediately well up in my eyes and by the end of the first number my face hurts from smiling and my hands are red from clapping. I am just so HAPPY that all these kids are just so HAPPY! Hey, I live with a middle-schooler. I know what it takes for a mini-teen to sustain happiness for two hours! And Patti does it, year after year after year, by giving them the gift of performing. From the opening act to the graceful way they take their bows and honor the orchestra, lighting techs, stage and sound teams – they are happy with themselves and each other.

I’m sorry if you missed this year’s performance at DickersonMiddle School – it was truly one of the best, and they are all the best. But you will get another chance to see the magic of Patti, when she leads WaltonHigh School’s theater geeks / jocks / preps / independents in this year’s Pippin.  Yep, she’s volunteering for the second or third year in a row to also direct the high school’s production. I know, she’s crazy. But if you had a kid under her tutelage, you’d thank G-d that the world has a few crazy women like Patti. I’ve thought of moving to East Cobb just so my son could be in one of Patti’s plays – I’m serious. The Marietta Daily Journal recently alluded to Patti having increased the property values for homes in the Dickerson/Walton school district because of her revival of the theater. She is that powerful, I’m telling you.

The transformation of the middle school kids that Patti directs is nothing short of a musical miracle. And this year’s show, Honk!, made it all the more pertinent. As Patti points out, Honk! never made it to Broadway, but it did win the equivalent of the Tony Award in England. It’s basically the story of The Ugly Duckling set to toe-tapping music and an alternating sweet-and-sarcastic script. (Unbeknownst to the duck parents, a swan is hatched among their nest, and instead of a cute little quack, it makes a loud and musically-flat Honk!) While the play takes us through the adventures of “Ugly” trying to find his way home – and finding himself in the process – it’s hard not to make comparisons between the play and the real lives of kids in middle schools all across the country. What better time than adolescence to teach our kids that it’s okay to be different, and it’s even more okay to respect and embrace the differences of others?  After all, who doesn’t feel “different” in middle and high school? Who doesn’t think everyone’s staring at your bad hair day or that pimple on your chin?  Who doesn’t feel like an “outsider” from time to time – in middle school and beyond…

This year, Patti’s play selection and the process of bringing the play to life were both steeped in the same message: be willing to make friends with people who you might have thought of simply as “different,” “weird” or worse. Because deep down, at one time or another, every one of us has felt (and will likely feel again) that we were the honkers in a world full of quacks.

I love you, Patti. You and your “girl-gang” continue to inspire me.

Thanks.