..., and sometimes the Imposter Syndrome actually works.
I had no fear in those days. Well, I had fear, but I didn't pay attention to it like I did later in life.
Ed Sullivan had just aired his last show, and halfway around the world, in Praetoria, a couple named their new baby Elon Musk. Still, I was oblivious to all of that and was simply interviewing for a job teaching 7th-12th grade music at Brattleboro Union High School in Brattleboro, VT. The year was 1971, and
…the interview went something like this:
“Can you direct a musical?”
“Yes. I can direct a musical.”
And stunningly, the interview committee moved on from the extra-curricular to the curricular, just like that. Who knows what they would have asked and who knows what I would have answered had they pressed me, but school was starting soon. The previous music teacher had been wildly successful and exceedingly popular but had jumped ship in early summer for a better offer, so here I was, interviewing for the job, and school started in a little over three weeks.
It wasn’t as if I wasn’t qualified. After all, I did win ‘Most Valuable Member” as a 16-year-old percussionist, touring Europe with the School Band of America in 1966, playing 20 concerts in 30 days in seven European countries, with a triangle tinkle here and a timpani roll there and whipping up a percussion frenzy as we closed every concert with “Start and Stripes Forever.” Could I direct a musical? Huh, lemme think.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know what I was doing. After all, when I was a freshman at Manchester College, I was the entire percussion section in the pit orchestra for South Pacific. The next year, I was promoted from pit to stage and was a chorus member for The King and I. Could I direct a musical? Maybe.
It’s not as if I couldn’t teach music. After all, most of the boys in my 8th-grade chorus in Warsaw, Indiana, were the Junior High State of Indiana Basketball Champions, which was really something in those parts. They felt sorry for me because I was the only teacher in the school who didn’t have a paddle, so they made one for me in industrial arts and proudly showed me that it had holes in it so if I decided to use it, the wind would whip through the holes and allow me to deliver a wallop. Trust me; those weren’t the good old days, but could I direct a musical? Perhaps.
The previous BUHS music teacher had set the bar high, so if I didn’t live up to his standard, I might not win a popularity contest even if I pulled it off. Luckily, I never cared much for popularity contests, so in answer to “Can you direct a musical?” I did gulp, but I didn’t blink.
“Yes. I can direct a musical.”
And that led to two magical years in the early 1970s working with fabulous human beings in southern Vermont. Our production of The Music Man got such good reviews our first weekend that the principals of the Marlboro Theater (summer stock) came to our closing show and hired me to be the Music Director for their summer musicals, The Threepenny Opera and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
In my second year at BUHS, we did Fiddler on the Roof. Once again, we mounted a production that distinguished itself and all the participants. We had camaraderie; we had panache; we had verve; we built community; and we made magic.
Lucinda Ray was a fellow teacher (English) who became our Technical Director. She was responsible for sets, props, costumes, and makeup and helped me with the staging. I was the Musical Director and Producer, in charge of the singing, dancing, pit orchestra, staging, publicity, and logistics. Her MA in theatre from BU saved the day more than once, often teaching me what I didn’t know just in time for me to instruct others and allowing me to take the credit. What a gracious and talented woman she was and still is, and the following summer, she directed Stephen Barefoot and me in a dinner theater version of the two-person musical I Do! I Do! at the Putney Inn.
And then we all dispersed to far corners: the students went to Boston and Berklee, Oberlin and Burlington, and I went to London for just a year, but we all know that way leads on to way, and of course, none of us ever officially returned.
But creating a musical together builds community, and even though it’s been so long that even my former students have retired, we are again going to meet on Sunday, June 2, 2024. I’ll be conducting the anthem at the Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, where our accompanist from all those years ago, Mary Milkey-May, is still at the keyboard. Then, we will adjourn to The Marina Restaurant to share some memories and a meal. Here are pictures from our last reunion. I’m sure you will recognize the residents of River City and Anatevka, including Marian, the Librarian; Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, the mayor’s wife; and Tevye and family. May everyone have the kind of community we built in those two years when I was the great imposter.
Have courage. Sometimes, being an imposter works out. Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment, remembering a teacher of yours.
Some of my memorable teachers are not in school but in my training as a physician. I venerate teachers in general and I am sympathetic to their toiling in the background to make school happen.
I like the way this piece starts from and remains centered on the question at the interview. I like the easy conversational style of the narrative
...and we don't know for sure what effect we are having at the time