FROZEN KIDS

When I first heard this title, I thought, “What the heck is Frozen Kids? What a weird name.” I soon discovered that the title referred to the much abbreviated version of one of the latest Broadway Disney extravaganzas, re-written to be performed by elementary school kids. Frozen, the kids’ version. Ah. Got it.

Exactly one week ago today, I was spending roughly ten hours inside an elementary school’s cafetorium with twenty-nine kids ranging from grades 2nd to 5th as my co-director and I led them through three performances of our production of Frozen. This was the culmination of a two-month endeavor to get kids, most of whom had never even seen a live theatrical production, much less participated in one, through a thirty-five minute musical theatre performance. And the crowds went wiiiild. They really did because after two years of pandemic isolation and remote learning, it was not only thrilling for parents, teachers, and students to gather in person to see a live production of anything, the production was actually pretty good.

Back at the beginning of this year, I began casually looking for employment. I wanted something part-time so that I would still have time to write, attend yoga and dance classes, get together with friends for an occasional lunch, and still have the energy to perform in the evenings. I also wanted to find something that would spark my creative juices and not merely be busy work. Then, lo and behold, I came upon a job posting for a co-director of an after school program to produce Frozen Kids. The job would require that I be available Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons for two hours each day right after school got out. The school was also located right here in San Jose, so I wouldn’t have to commute very far. Perfect! I immediately applied for the position, and with my experience as a former elementary school teacher and all my theatrical knowledge, I got the job.

I knew that working with non-theatre kids with little to no experience would be a challenge, but I was not at all prepared for how much the past two years had seriously curtailed some major cognitive and social development. And it appeared that the younger the kids, the more pronounced that deficit. Some of those kids had missed pre-school and kindergarten all together and were now in school for the first time as a 1st grader. Others were merely in kindergarten when the lock-down happened, and now they were thrust into 3rd grade without all the academic and critical social advancement. And if you don’t already know the vast difference between a kindergartener and a 3rd grader. . . Well, there is just no comparison.

It was clear that all the kids, regardless of age or grade, had been through a lot, and my appreciation for teachers and what they have had to contend with since in-person instruction has resumed simply skyrocketed. We, as a country, have got to start paying teachers what they are worth!

I remember how tiring it was back when I taught kindergarten and 1st grade, but the level of exhaustion I felt when I got into my car at the end of every two hour rehearsal really took me by surprise. I would sit in my car for a few moments, just trying to recoup some level of energy to make the trek back home. By the time I would arrive at my house through end-of-the-workday traffic - I. Was. Done. Fortunately, my yoga and dance classes were mostly on days that I didn’t have rehearsals with the kids, but some of those evenings when I had to perform myself were truly a grind. I must admit that there were several days as I drove home after being with those kids when I thought, “I cannot wait until this is over. I don’t think I will do this again.”

The thing I most regretted was that I found it very difficult to find time to write because writing requires imagination and creativity, which is in short supply when you feel drained. Whatever creative juices I still managed to squeeze out all went towards coming up with fun and interesting choreography that kids from ages seven to eleven, who have never had any dance instruction in their lives, with some who still couldn’t quite distinguish their left hand/foot from their right, could learn and competently execute.

Despite their complete lack of experience, I was determined to not dumb anything down and wanted to leave them with real knowledge of theatrical terms and how the process works. Of course, kids beings kids, even though their cognitive and social development may have been playing pandemic catch-up, their brains are still so sponge-like that they were able to pick up and remember all their choreography, blocking, and eventually (most of) their lines with relative ease. I expected A LOT from them, and they totally rose to meet those expectations.

Finally, the big day had arrived, and they were performing twice for the other students and once in the late afternoon for parents, family, and friends. The kids were abuzz with excitement and nerves. Before each performance, I gave them my pre-show pep talk. I reminded them that the hard part (learning and remembering everything) was over, and now all they had to do was enjoy the experience and have fun.

One girl asked, “How old were you when you decided you wanted to act?”

“I was five years old,” I replied, remembering how it felt to sit inside a beautiful theatre watching The Nutcracker.

"What about directing?" she continued.

"About six years old," I said recalling the day I “directed” my fellow 1st graders in a recess production of The Wizard of Oz. I also “starred” in it.

There was a collective “wow” throughout the group.

Then, another girl said, “When I grow up, I want to be an actress!”

That one statement uttered by a girl who in the beginning struggled with her lines because English was not her first language, then blossomed into someone with clear leadership skills, made the entire experience for me sooo worth it.