How My High School Friends Changed my Life by Marysue Moses

 

                May I talk about Julie Andrews for a moment?  Without her, my high school life might have had a very different trajectory. 

 

                 I became obsessed with Julie at age 12, when Mary Poppins came out. I saw The Sound of Music five times. I learned everything I could about my idol, sent away for old magazines, and kept a scrapbook about her career, starting with her Broadway debut in The Boyfriend. I still remember the Life magazine cover featuring her as Eliza Dolittle. My parents took me to the New York City premiere of Thoroughly Modern Millie. I was crushed that Julie did not attend, but I walked up to Mary Tyler Moore and gushed, “What was it like to work with Julie Andrews?” I don’t remember how she responded, but the look on her face was, shall we say, not amused.

 

                 Thanks to Julie, I decided I wanted to be an actress. In high school, I enrolled in Jack Boyle’s drama class. Mr. Boyle, who was dubbed, “B” knew a lot about theater and picked plays that most high schools would never dream of touching—The Good Woman of Setzuan, Cyrano de Bergerac, and, in our senior year, Hamlet. B also started a summer drama workshop, where many lifelong friendships began. 

 

                 My friend Chris had the face of an elfin water sprite and the voice of a wise older woman. She was hysterical in comedic roles. So talented! One summer afternoon, she went around delighting us, her friends, with a violin serenade outside each of our homes.

 

                 My friend Phil and I really hit it off. Waiting for drama class or rehearsals to begin, we’d slouch in our chairs in the auditorium, talking and giggling, knees draped over the seats in front of us. He was hilarious, despite—and no doubt related to—having survived a challenging family situation.

 

                 The girls in our group, Jane, Leslie, Moira, Dorit, Chris, and I enjoyed frequent “Friday Nights,” meaning sleepovers, brownies, talks about life, and sharing current angst about our parents or unrequited crushes. 

 

                 Some Friday or Saturday nights, we’d gather at one of our homes for potato chips, Coca-Cola, and listening to Randy (Hamlet) and Andy (Polonius) play their guitars. We’d sing along with dewy-eyed folk songs, or silly ones, notably the Zombie Jamboree Bash.

 

                 It was friendship, humor, stories, vulnerability, jokes, music, laughter, and the tears I burst into one night while Randy and Andy were playing and singing Bob Dylan’s Dream that forged me, and kept me in theater for two decades. Our mutual high school friends and I still have reunions. We lost Chris, John, and B way too soon. Phil (yes, that same Phil) and I married in our mid-40s and were deliriously happy. He died before his time as well, and five high school friends were there near the end. 

 

                 Theater will forever keep shaping me because of my high school experiences and those long lasting relationships. Theater is why my book, Looking Past Dementia, uses present tense to tell the stories of lessons learned from those living with dementia. I want my readers to be pulled into the action as they watch those “scenes”.

 

 

By Marysue Moses