Student Blog: Giving Iowa (A Second) Try… Let's Not Give It A Third

The title of this blog embodies how I felt after I exited the theater of my high school's spring musical. And just to be clear, this feeling was not conjured due to the performance but from the inevitable comparison of the past and the alienation the title 'alumnus' brings.

I had planned to go see the spring musical and had it marked on my calendar ever since performance dates were released. I wanted to go since I believe in supporting the arts and I thought it was an interesting choice of show this year. Not only because I didn't see The Music Man on Broadway but waited outside for Hugh Jackman anyways, but because The Music Man was one of my, and this year's graduating seniors', first high school theater productions.

Back in 2015, my high school slated a spring production of The Music Man. With the school being K-12, they had the entire 4th and 5th grades to make up the pool of auditionees for the roles of Winthrop and Amaryllis (plus town children). Since Amaryllis only sings within the last few measures of "Goodnight My Someone," the girls were required to sing "Gary, Indiana" as part of the audition. I remember having trouble understanding the audition scene in which Amaryllis makes fun of and cries over Winthrop all in one page. I couldn't figure out why Amaryllis was head over heels for Winthrop and why it was so important to her to secure her marital status at 10 years old. I also remember not being able to sing with the piano, but somehow I got into the show (obviously not as Amaryllis). Regardless of not scoring a minor role, I was extremely excited to be a part of a high school production, with sets, costumes, makeup, and of course, high schoolers.

Even though the photos of me from the 2015 production look like I had no idea what was going on, as I sat in the audience for the 2023 production, I seemed to remember it all.

Knowing that I had intentions to see the musical, my friend gave me the extra ticket she had for Saturday's matinee show. I'd be sitting with five other 2022 alumni, but little did any of us know that Saturday's matinee was also the alumni performance. As a result, in addition to the five classmates I was sitting with, five more were sprinkled throughout the theater- for three of them, this was also their second trip to River City.

Even just by looking at this year's set, all I (and, I'd like to think, my classmates) could do was analyze and compare what is to what was. While some things looked like they were taken out of an eight-year-old time capsule, others looked wrong (new) to us. Comparing, no matter what the subject, always seems to conjure up some sort of negativity and I tried to ignore that notion as I viewed the show. But as the show proceeded, I couldn't help but see flashes from the past. I am not trying to be dramatic, I PROMISE, but as "Ya Got Trouble" began all I could see was my classmates and I responding to the warnings that this salesman had brought to town. I kept glancing to my left to see if I'd catch a mutual reaction from my peers. Were they seeing the same things as I? Were they watching today's cast or reflections of themselves?

That whole paragraph is very dramatic, especially those questions at the end, so I will spare you from having to read the rest of my inner monologue from the rest of the performance.

After the show ended, the fine arts director directed all alumni to East Hall-- an all-purpose room where food and refreshments were set up. With the promise of free food and drink, my row of classmates decided to head on over to East Hall. What's the worst that could happen, we see other alumni? No, the worst that could happen is that they ask for an alumni picture. And for some reason, God decided to crack his knuckles and therefore enforce Murphy's law. As graduates began to line up for the photo, my group of '22 alumni huddled together, trying to decide if it was time to hightail it to the bathroom. The obedient group of alumni was mostly from 2015 and later. Hearing us being called by the principal for the first time in eleven months, we tried to justify our absence from the photo: "Who wants a bunch of 18-year-olds in their alumni photo? No one, right? I mean, technically it hasn't even been a year yet." But us being the chickens that we are, we let the nightmare commence. And now our faces are plastered on the alumni Facebook group for all of its 1.5k members to see. And that wasn't the worst part of Saturday's trip to the theater.

The worst part of this theatrical experience was, surprisingly, leaving. Yeah you had to watch your past be sent to the grave and you had to be in an alumni photo, but you did it with your classmates. The people you've been with since kindergarten, who you haven't seen since graduation, but still make you feel like yesterday was the last day of high school. The people you used to go out to eat with after every performance of the high school productions that you were a part of. But what now?

After getting out of alumni-photo-formation, we scurried out of the reunion party and walked back to the entrance of the theater. Some of my peers had siblings or partners in the cast and wanted and/or needed to wait for them to get out of hair, makeup, and costume. So, we all waited.

If you had an aerial shot of the building, where we waited was in between the East Hall and the dressing rooms, symbolically displaying how we felt: not students but not alumni. Stu-lumni?

When the cast came downstairs and siblings met with siblings, boyfriends with girlfriends, we all continued to wait. As stu-lumni, the student half of us were waiting to hear of a post-performance outing, but the alumni half of us felt that we were ultimately uninvited. We were elephants. We didn't feel this way because of the actual students nor the alumni, but we felt this way because of who we are and who we used to be.

I could not keep swallowing the awkwardness.

When we headed out to the parking lot (still with no plan) and I saw that I had parked on the opposite side of my peers, I ran (metaphorically, it would have been weird and way more awkward if I sprinted) to my car. I said no goodbye and didn't receive one. I mean how could you deliver one after such a traumatic trip to River City?