Introduction
M
y heart pounded and my fingertips tingled in anticipation that September morning as I stepped into the musty, ramshackle drama annex for the first time. Somehow, despite its shabby appearance, it was as though my eighth-grade self knew that it would one day become a place of solace and self-expression for me. Mr. Graham, the school’s drama teacher, had a reputation that preceded him. Renowned for being eccentric and, truthfully, a little manic, he became one of the most remarkable teachers I ever had. He spoke in metaphors with a raspy British accent and inhaled Benson and Hedges cigarettes like a chimney just steps from the classroom door. Mr. Graham sported a spectacular assortment of vests and scarves, custom-made, only to be described as a cross between my grandmother’s so-bad-they’re-good brocade curtains from the seventies and Don Cherry’s weekly ensembles on Hockey Night. He was unorthodox and certainly wasn’t an administration favorite. No, he was a rule-breaker, and the students adored him for it. Our jaws dropped the first day in his class when he announced that every single one of us would be learning to juggle. Then, we all just about fell on the floor when he added that we would be expected to memorize Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, and would be performing the juggling and poetry simultaneously for our peers. It was audacious to ask a bunch of hormonal preteens to do the one thing they all feared: put themselves on the path of potential public failure in front of their peers. We believed that it was impossible, that we could never do it. “Of course you can do it,” he said, gesturing toward us with nonchalance and a glint in his eye. “You can try. You’ll either succeed or fail. And if you fail, fail gloriously!” Then he’d remind us that we could always choose to take the zero (which, surprisingly, nobody ever did). He taught us that it’s always better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all. And do you know what? Somehow, despite our trepidation, most of us succeeded, surprising even ourselves.
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