TETA K-12 Committee
High School At-Large
One of my favorite professors from SFA is Dr. Rick Jones. He is witty, dry, caustic and sarcastic, and my favorite lecturer. His classes were anything but dull. How could that be with things like theatre history name of the year? (For the record, Bjernstern Bjernson is my favorite, although it lost to Chikamatzu Monzimon). One of his yearly rants is about the danger of the “Uncle Norbs” of the world.
Everyone knows an Uncle Norb. He is the negative voice about anything related to the arts. Norb doubts the use of a theatre degree, the creativity required in a high school production, the person who asks you if you want to wait on tables the rest of your life. Norb is judgmental and ignorant.
Norbs of the world can be dangerous. They can lurk in your districts, misunderstanding the importance of theatre classes, cutting budgets, and ignoring One Act Play. They can live with your talented theatre students, encouraging them to stop working in theatre once they get to college. They can even creep in your community, writing negative comments on local newspaper websites about the uselessness of teaching theatre in this day and age.
In January, my theatre program had the pleasure of getting an amazing Commedia Dell’Arte workshop from Laura Rikard, the acting and movement professor from SFA. I thought it was local newsworthy and called a reporter at “The Daily Sentinel,” and she and an amazing local photographer to write an article. They were so sweet to the students, took beautiful pictures, and made it the lead story on a Saturday edition. My students were thrilled about the pictures and the attention.
I went online to look at the article and noticed that a comment had been posted on the article. I clicked on it, and saw an Uncle Norb. This anonymous Norb was outraged that we were teaching comedy at Nacogdoches High School, when “the student population needs to be learning math, sciences, and ways to make money to grow this nation’s economy.”
People like our anonymous online commenter are dangerous to our programs and we must gently rebuke these notions. Thankfully, my husband, Matthew Perry, and the illustrious Mellissa McMillan-Cunningham took care of responding on the online article. They were both friendly, yet firm, rattling off statistics and figures that made me proud. Still, I found myself bothered, wondering what would possess an adult to criticize a young person who chose to invest in the arts in their spare time.
At the end of the day, it would up not mattering. My students were thrilled with the press and their parents loved the photos. They laughed at the critic’s comment and assured me that they did not care. It’s hard to argue with that.