The GoodheART Report – Field Trips to Father Comes Home

Nina Goodheart, A.R.T. intern and unstoppable blogger, returns to see what happens when students come to the theater.

Over the course of a play’s run, the laughter and applause of each audience provokes a unique performance, and a theater packed with teenagers always adds another layer of unpredictability. For that reason, when a student matinee performance rolls around, you’ll often find me watching from the back of the theater.

Since it’s only been eight months since I graduated from high school, I like to think I understand the mentality of the student theatergoer fairly well—the exhilaration at skipping class to see a show, the novelty of seeing your teachers in the audience instead of at the blackboard, the futile hope that there won’t be a worksheet to fill out afterwards.

Don’t think I’m naïve. I know that the average high school student does not enter the A.R.T. with the same level of dorky devotion that I do. But one of my favorite parts of working at the A.R.T. this year is watching four hundred teenagers, from the dubious to the delighted, fall under the spell of Father Comes Home From The Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). In Act 1, they giggle and hoot when Hero and Penny kiss. In Act 2, they fall into an uneasy silence at the Colonel’s cruel machinations. And when Act 3 reveals a devastating twist, it can take several minutes of gasps and murmurs before the audience is able to proceed.

Maybe this level of reaction isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But to me, it’s proof that theater is not and will never be a dying art form. When a three-hour play set during the Civil War play can grab the attention of my own instant-gratification generation, you don’t need the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History to recognize that something is working. (But hey, we’ll take it!) And who knows? Maybe we’ll see some of those students in the audience again. I know I’ll be there.

Nina Goodheart is a full-time artistic intern, production assistant, and blogger at the American Repertory Theater. She can also recite the complete American musical theatre canon on command.