You've shafted my daughter one time too many!

The BBQ Pit
1

My soon-to-be 18-year-old daughter, Sakura, has been involved in the dramas and musicals in school since fifth grade. She’s always dreamed of having a substantial part. Alas, this hasn’t happened, and she’s been disappointed, but it hasn’t dimmed her enthusiasm or her willingness to be involved any way she can.

In last year’s drama, she was even willing to be production manager and not appear onstage at all. She made it a positive experience, and being involved at all was better than being in the audience, from her point of view.

This year’s drama saw her getting a brief, four-line part in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and once again, she is acting as production manager. The show is scheduled to open Friday, March 7.

Until two days ago, when the girl cast in the main role of Elizabeth mouthed off to the director one time too many. She was given an ultimatum by the director: apologize, or you’re not playing Elizabeth. The girl didn’t back down, and she was out the door.

Having no one to play Elizabeth, the director asked Sakura to get up in the part in two days, acting the part with the script in her hand, if need be. She did her best to rise to the occasion, spent hours at a necessarily extended rehearsal on Wednesday night, and basically looked forward to surviving through the weekend on adrenaline alone.

Until this morning, when the girl originally cast apologized and was given her part back.

They offered to split the performances, one girl on Friday, the other on Saturday. She turned them down, trying to be unselfish toward the company and the girl who worked for six weeks getting up in the role. The girl, the faculty/director, and the school principal all were present as Sakura had this devastating bomb dropped on her. They told her they were sorry, and that she had a “good sense of justice” in accepting it. They acknowledged it was “disappointing” for her.

She came home and cried, then napped for hours as the only defense mechanism she had.

Of the three principle players in this little farce, only my daughter exhibited completely ethical behavior, consistent with friendship and the ideal of the school and theater community.

And she’s the one getting shafted.

Thank you for turning my daughter into a cynic almost before she’s even old enough to drive.

A teacher/principal conference will be scheduled next week.

2

Thats got to be the most fucked up thread title I’ve seen on here.

3

I agree. Shafting and Daughters. I don’t know whether to be excited or horrified!

4

On the one hand, both the director and the girl who your daughter replaced could use a good smack.

On the other hand, The Show Must Go On. Show biz, even at the crappy school play level (especially at the crappy school play level) is a sordid and heartbreaking business. Presumably the director thought it would be better to have the more rehearsed actress go on, for the sake of the show and the audience’s perspective. But this still really Bites the Big One.

5

That’s horrible.

I kind of know the feeling of trying and trying and never getting a good part in the school plays – I never got any part at all. Every play my school did was a musical, and even the bit players had to sing. I can’t.

Still, being offered a part, working your ass off, and then having it yanked away to be given to someone who acted like a complete jerk and happened to apologize just in time, that’s despicable action on the school’s part.

I can’t believe they didn’t tell that girl “too little, too late.”

6

Dave, I hope you made it clear to your daughter that, whatever comes out of this, she is a class act.

7

“good sense of justice”… what a laugh. Justice would have been letting the prima donna stay on the sidelines for mouthing off. Apologizing days later is bullshit, and a transparent ploy to just get back the part.

Blech, why is it so hard to find people with integrity? Well, besides your daughter, of course, SHE did the right thing. Have a blast at the conference.

8

[warning this is intended as humorous]
Could we Dopers send lieu round to sort out the director for you?

Cheers, Bippy

9

Ditto. Me too. I’ll add to the chorus. This can not be stated too many times.

And when you go to the parent/teacher conference, let them see where learned that classy behavior.

10

I shafted this dude’s daughter in his tool shed once.

He caught us when he came looking for an axe. (Luckily he did not find one.)

11

They pulled that stuff on me when I was in high school- with the same damn play. I loved drama. I had great times there. But ultimately I learned that no matter how hard you try, how worthy you are and how good you are, sometimes you get screwed. I put my heart and soul into drama, and continually got screwed.

I couldn’t handle it. I became a film major in college- now I control the projects. It’s a lot harder, but a lot less painful.

12

Dave, please let your daughter read this post…

Sakura, hon? Fear not… it seems like everything sucks at the moment, but honestly… your best option right now is to simply “cop it sweet” on the chin, and go back to your original role and most importantly - don’t say a word. Whatever you do, don’t say a word… don’t complain to anyone anywhere… and here’s why…

Oddly enough, this little incident is a perfect “early life” example of “Karma in Action”… and I gotta tell ya… if you choose to believe in “Karma in Action”, and how it works, this is the most deliciously perfect time for you…

You see, you don’t have to do a thing for Karma to sort itself out. The teachers who made these dumbass decisions - they’re gonna get their karma, trust me. And the primadonna? She’s gonna get her karma too.

All you have to do now Sakura is this - merely smile a warm, wry, inner smile and think to yourself… "Oooooooh boy, are you guys gonna have some nasty shit happen to you in the near future… " and you simply have to sit back and be patient… but whatever you do, don’t say a word. If you say anything, to anyone, other than your parents… “Karma in Action” doesn’t kick in with all it’s vengeance…

Best of luck, Sakura. You’re Dad’s a class act in my book.

13

And to show what a class-act you are, you might graciously bring one of these for the director - as his/hers has obviously gone missing.

Ugh. This thread brings back some frustrating memories of high school plays.

14

None of you are going to want to see this, but I have to post it.

This girl has been involved in theater since the fifth grade and has never received a major part. There’s a message there.

I played sports all through school. Football, baseball, lacrosse, you name it. The problem was I sucked at sports.

I’d get a chance to play here and there when the better players were hurt or sick or in a bad odor with the coaches for whatever reason.

When the better players were able to play, I rode the pine. I learned to accept that, and eventually quit playing. Yes, I worked hard and put in a lot of effort, but at the end of the day, I just wasn’t very good.

Learning to deal with disappointment and accepting your limitations is part of growing up too.

15

**
High school isn’t Broadway. The show is the means, not the end. You’re there to learn a lot of things, but one of them isn’t how to be a spoiled prima donna.

DAVEW0071
If it were me, I’d insist that your daughter be given the lead in the next play, assuming there is one. She’s paid her dues and is entitled to have the full experience of a starring role from the rehearsals through the performance.

Your daughter sounds like a fine person. She has obviously learned to look past her own interests and to think of the greater good. She knows that virtue is its own reward. Now you need to help her learn another lesson.

She needs to learn that sometimes, people less high-minded than herself get righteously pissed at seeing the virtuous get screwed over. Sometimes these less high-minded people will make a god-awful stink to correct an injustice. All things come to those who wait a little faster when assisted by a nail-spitting third party liberally applying boots to deserving backsides.

Enjoy your conference!

16

Dave, I for one cannot wait to see what’ll be said at the conference…you already know (I hope!) that both you and Sakura are class acts in my book, and she did the “just” (yet sucky) thing. She should be proud of the way she handled it – I hope she is!

OTOH, I know too well what she’s going through. I was originally a theatre major in college; throughout school, I was always involved in plays/musicals in one way or another. Like Sakura, I’d accept my bit parts and stage manager positions with dignity, looking at both as learning experiences. I can’t tell how you how many times I was passed over for lead/second lead roles, either because of favortism or because I just didn’t “look” the part.

Yeah, it hurt. A lot. I’d sometimes cry myself to sleep over it.

But I never gave up…and I hope Sakura doesn’t either.

hugs

17

Hey, I’ve done high school theatre. To hear some directors go on, you’d think the NY Times theatre critic was going to be in the audience. Sad but true. And high school theatre is exactly where prima donnas start.

18

I’m going to have to mostly agree with Exgineer on this one, except that the director obviously thought Sakura was at least capable of performing the part somewhat, else she probably wouldn’t have been given it at all.

Your point about sports rings clear to me though, as I had sort of the same thing going, but I didn’t even make it to highschool before I realized it wasn’t my thing.

To have the part and have it taken away is bad, and the director should be talked to. But as Exgineer said, the fact that she’s been doing this for almost 10 years and hasn’t gotten a substantial part may mean something.

This is ridiculous. Just because someone’s in the drama club for a certain amount of time, they should be entitled to the full experience of a starring role? Umm…not really. That’s not the way acting, music, sports, anything in which a performance is given works, even in highschool.

If you’re a second-string football player, the coach should let you play in the championship game just because you’ve been there so long? Not really.

If you’ve been in choir for four years, the director is supposed to give you a solo just because? Doesn’t work that way.

The San Francisco 49ers will never come up to me and say, “We know you’re a really sucky quarterback, but you’ve got heart kid. Here’s a 50 Million dollar contract.”

The opportunity for those things goes to the people who are best at them. That’s the way it works in “the real world” and it’s the way it should, to an extent, work in high school and college.

Since she originally had the part, I think she should’ve gotten to keep the part, but to suggest that she should automatically be given the starring role in the next performance is ridiculous.

19

It does, however, suggest that the director might want to think twice before giving the other girl any major roles.

20

Nice guys finish last. If what your daughter wants is to be a good person, she’s clearly already there.

If she wants a big part, she needs to self-promote, be selfish, and use all the leverage she can find. If she’s not interested in doing that, she shouldn’t be surprised when the people who do that stuff get picked.

Sorry to encourage cynicism, but it is a functional survival mechanism.