The Last Performance: English teacher Richard Lawrence reflects on bringing his class to the theater just before the COVID shutdown

The Last Performance

By Richard Lawrence, Mount St. Charles Academy English teacher

During the many years that I have been teaching English, I have always made an effort to share my love for the theater with my students. So it has been a ritual with me every school year — to find something on stage that I thought would excite my students and take them on a field trip. I would always try to make it a complete day — in what I called “the travelling classroom.” That would involve the theater experience itself and then usually a trip to a local fast food restaurant. So 2019-20 school year was no different. I searched for what I thought would be the best fit. What would connect? What would inspire? Eventually I settled on an adaptation of Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities which was being offered by Trinity Rep. I knew that the story would pull them in, and I was absolutely sure that the Trinity Rep players would do the same. The date we had secured was March 12, 2020. As always it would be a complete day out of the school building. We would leave during the first period, get transported down to Providence, make our way into the theater, enjoy the performance, and stay for a round of discussion that typically followed the daytime performances. My plan also called for a stroll through the city, lunch in the food court at Providence Place Mall, and then, after having discovered that most of my students had never been inside of their own state Capitol Building, I also arranged for a tour. It really is amazing how excited teenagers can get with the prospect of a “day out of school.” But as the day came closer, I reminded them that the “classroom” would follow them. On that Thursday morning, we were en route to the theater when my cell phone rang. It was the associate education director from Trinity Rep calling to find out if we were still coming. “Of course,” I replied, “We are on our way.” He went on to explain that on that day all of the other schools booked were from neighboring Massachusetts and because of the fear of the pandemic and orders from their governor, they had cancelled. He told me that my 30 AP Lit. English students would be the only ones in attendance. And so, we were given front row seats and treated to a compelling performance. We had the entire theater to ourselves. In the Trinity Rep way of extending performances out to the audience, the actors performed in the aisles. They performed behind us. They performed alongside us. They embraced their small audience and brought us into the story. The post-play discussion was emotional. There was a certain feeling among the actors that the mayor was going to put a pause on such public gatherings. Some of them cried as they spoke to us about the play and their love to perform in front of live audiences. As we filed our way out of the theater on that day, we found the streets of Providence empty and eerily quiet. We passed up on our plans to eat at the Mall and traded for a brown bag picnic in the foyer of the Capitol Building. So yes...it was the last live theater performance at Trinity Rep for over a year and a half, and more than likely, was also the last live tour given at the State House. The next day was Friday, March 13. That, in fact, would be the last time that I would actually see any of my students in person that school year. When the final day of remote classes arrived in late May, I sent my students two photos I had taken back on March 12 — one while they were sitting in the theater and another while they were sitting on the floor eating lunch in the foyer of the State Capitol Building. With those photos I sent along the words of the late poet Mary Oliver: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” With that I assured them that I believed that they would all recover and come back stronger than ever. And that included the Trinity Rep players who I knew, like the mythical bird Phoenix, would “rise from the ashes” and be back again soon, performing live in front of packed audiences.

FROM TOP: Matt Clevy, Brian McEleney & Rachel Dulude in A Tale of Two Cities at Trinity Rep, 2020, adapted by Brian McEleney from the novel by Charles Dickens & directed by Tyler Dobrowsky. Photo by Mark Turek

Richard Lawrence’s photo of his English class in the nearly empty Chace Theater for a performance of A Tale of Two Cities at Trinity Rep.

Project Discovery Resumes

The small and powerful Project Discovery matinee that Richard Lawrence describes was, in fact, Trinity Rep’s last live, in-person performance for the 2019-20 Season. As this long pause approaches its end, we are preparing to resume bringing student and adult audiences back to our Lederer Theater Center. For 2021’s A Christmas Carol, Project Discovery will be entirely online. Teachers can sign up their classes or their entire schools for streaming access to A Christmas Carol. The video will be accessible to watch at any time between December 6, 2021 and January 16, 2022. Pricing will be $150 per classroom or $500 for an entire school. In spring 2022, in-person Project Discovery student matinees will resume. There will be two student matinees for August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, on March 11 and March 17, 2022, and one for Sueño on April 28, 2022. All in-person performances begin at 10:00 am. Whether streaming or in-person, all Project Discovery shows include a Study Guide designed to provide historical and theatrical background information, ties to the Common Core, and discussion questions. Project Discovery tickets for streaming and in-person shows go on sale on Thursday, September 9. More info can be found at www.trinityrep.com/projectdiscovery.