I was a leash-child. You know, one of those hyper-active kids who are too much for their parents to handle so they literally put on a leash. It’s mostly because I loved the street. It was always an adventure chasing after my ball or having tricycle races with my next door neighbor, Ben. None of which my family was too pleased with. The last straw occurred while on my way to the public library with my preschool class to visit Ralph the Safety Police Dog. I must have seen something particularly fun that day when I ripped my hand from the line and ran off of the sidewalk. All too quickly I was wrenched back onto the curb by my teacher. Furious, she pointed to a bug on the ground and said “Courtney, if you ever go into the street again, this is you.” And then she smashed the bug with her foot. To this day, I panic slightly whenever I cross the street and I see a car coming (even if I know it’s coming to a very slow stop).
The first musical I saw was the national tour of Cats, and it blew my mind. I mean it was people, dressed as cats, singing about their lives as if they are people! What five year old wouldn’t go ape shit over that? That was when I decided I wanted to act in musicals. Music has always been a big part of my life. Both of my parents were musicians at one point in their lives and I grew up on the movie musicals of the 1940s and 50s. I’ve also been singing ever since I can remember and my parents encouraged it by sending me to musical theatre summer camps all throughout elementary school. Over the years I have taken part in every possible aspect of musicals from acting and directing to stage management, crew and even set construction. So naturally, when the opportunity came along to further my theatrical studies at the British-American Drama Academy in Oxford last summer, I jumped at the chance.
At Oxford the program (which was Shakespeare-based) was split up into six groups of about 14 people. I was in Ibsen, in which the members ranged from juniors in college and grad students to professional actors and a 33-year old restaurateur. I didn’t know anyone, which is not a feeling I am unfamiliar with. However, when I went to Oxford I knew I would need a “buddy” to help me cross the street – because in case you are not aware, the cars come the other way down the street. It was not a good situation for a reformed leash-child, to say the least.
Spending our entire days together all week made us all very close quite quickly, so it wasn’t hard to find someone to cross the street with. Or rather, it wasn’t hard to almost get hit by an oncoming bus enough times that Jon, a junior at DeSales University, decided I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself anymore. I’m thankful for Jon everyday. He kept me out of harm’s way virtually every time we walked out of the Balliol College doors. Now, I’m not a total mess in the street-crossing department because I eventually learned to wait until Jon had crossed the street first. I figured that if we got hit by a car or bus that his body would take on most of the impact (which he slowly discovered much to my chagrin). We spent so much time together that our trips to and from class became something of a ritual (a part of which was Jon yanking me out of the way of an oncoming bus by the strap of my backpack). We often walked with Kevin (a Yale MFA) and would rap Shakespeare – yes we were that cool. Sometimes we made up our own little songs about the weirdoes we saw on Cornmarket Street (there was a really good one about the Nearly Naked Drummer Guy). One day, when we had gotten to our movement classroom particularly early, we decided to sing along with the piano, pretending we were little kids performing for our parents.
With Kevin at the piano (he was the most proficient of the three of us), Jon and I took “center stage” in front of a giant rainbow piece of fabric that covered one entire wall of the dance studio. We were a children’s group called the Rainbow Coalition – derived from the rainbow fabric – and sang about the heat of the English summer and the nasty things we saw our parents doing. We danced spastically and frantically and as the rest of our group arrived at the room it was brought to our attention that it would be absolutely hysterical if we were to write a song for the upcoming talent night at the end of the program. We all looked at each other and it was decided – The Rainbow Coalition would become a musical reality.
The room is littered with lighters
Daddy’s pissed off again
“Where’s my crack pipe you bastard?!”
And then he lit up again, and he said
Do what I say, not what I do
No more career days at your high school
Daddy bought rocks from the emo kid
And when they caught him he said this:
I don’t regret what I did
Before this I had never thought about writing musicals, so when the opportunity came along to do so I was very glad to have the help of others. A fourth member was added to The Rainbow Coalition; so now it was Jon, Kevin and Claire, a junior from Northwestern who was in a different group at the program, and me. We toiled for hours over the next few days, always working in secret. We worked in the corners of the Balliol quadrangle, with Jon on the guitar, so as not to be heard and we only worked on the piano in the common room after everyone had left. As each day passed, news of our secretive act grew and everyone could not wait until it was revealed.
The Rainbow Coalition was a group of elementary schoolchildren from Seattle, Washington. They go around speaking about drug awareness – of which they have plenty because their parents are drug addicts! We wrote the outline for three songs – each song focusing on a different drug addition, but because of time constraints we only finalized one. It was called “Cheap Ain’t Pretty,” and it was about crack. The unfinished songs were about a father’s denial about his weed smoking habits and an explosion of a meth house – both very tasteful if I must say! The Rainbow Coalition was a very upbeat group of kids who had overcome their parents’ problems and who were very excited to tell other about their experiences.
Mom’s asleep in the kitchen
With a spoon in her hand
She was melting white powder
Before she passed out she said: and she said:
Cheap ain’t pretty, but what do I care?
My pockmarked face looks good with no hair
Just make sure Mommy doesn’t fall off her chair
And if you wanna help her again, call an ambulance
The night of the talent show came and there was a lot of buzz surrounding our act. The dress rehearsal was the first time anyone outside of our group (and the accompanist) had seen or heard anything, but it seemed to go well. We were all extremely nervous for the real show – we had no idea if anyone was going to like our song. It was extremely controversial and highly inappropriate and we had no idea what our professors were going to think. So, we decided that in order to curb our nerves, our act would begin the second we stepped out of the wings. As the emcee introduced The Rainbow Coalition, Mary Beth, Jack, Randy, and Olga (a foreign exchange student who didn’t speak English) came out onstage to sing a song. The pianist gave Olga her “A” and they began. Each child had a solo, stepping forward as they took center stage. When the children began the final verse, they all joined in together:
They teach us so many lessons!
Like public speaking skills
How to poop on the ceilings
Or spend the night in a jail
And we learned cheap ain’t pretty
But it’s plenty of fun!
Mommy and daddy get antsy without ‘em
So if you’re stuck in on a rainy day
Just pull out a bag of rocks and have a wonderful day!
Have a wonderful day!
It was the best performance induced high I have ever had. The entire time onstage I feel elated. With the lights heating up my face and my heart pumping in my chest, the excitement that I felt escalated with each verse. Every time I heard the audience laugh at our words, the smile plastered on my face grew. Our friends and professors loved it! Everyone was laughing and cheering, and at times it was even hard to keep our cool while we were singing. I’ve always loved performing, but nothing compares to performing something that you have toiled over for hours and having the audience love it. I never thought when I walked through the giant Harry Potter-esque doors of Balliol College at Oxford that I would walk away with one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve always loved taking part in every aspect of musical theatre, but now I can’t imagine not being a part of the writing process as well. While we are still working on making The Rainbow Coalition a full length musical, I’ve been thinking a lot about starting a project of my own…perhaps about a girl who is afraid of crossing the street. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be awesome.
