Another Opening, Another Show: When Teens Take On Adult Themes

It's been a theatrical summer in Westchester. Our kids and lots of their neighborhood friends were involved in our town's popular theatre camp.

Our sixth grader was in Hippie Flower Power, a global warming retelling of Woodstock. His teenage sister was a counselor for the ten-year-olds, helping to produce their musical, Westward Whoa, a melodrama of the Old West.

Everything was great and adorable. The children really gave it their all -- singing, dancing, acting, and learning how to put on a show.

At night, the teenage counselors had their own musical in rehearsals and this year's production was Rent, the play about bohemian artists in New York City who apparently do not want to pay their rent.

During his opening night curtain speech, the director told us, "There is some 'content' in Rent. And if we took out all the 'content,' it wouldn't be Rent."

I guess it would be Westward Whoa.

We parents had already heard about issues with the play from the very teens who were in the cast. They all came home telling us that there were some things in the show that might be "inappropriate." I think the kids were more uneasy than the parents.

After all, it's not as if we grownups haven't been around for forty or more years, as if we didn't live through the exact era in the play.

Hard for some of our kids to believe, however. I told my daughter I might be able to help her come up with an authentic costume for the play's Alphabet City setting and late 1980s era since I was a fashion editor at a teen magazine during those years.

"Yeah, but really, Mom. Really? But you weren't exactly, you know, Avenue A."

I don't bother to tell her that many of us current suburbanites were once savvy city dwellers. Heck, even those of us who resemble the uncool, well-to-do Scarsdale parents depicted in the play are not shocked by themes of gay relationships, AIDS, and drug addiction.

But teenagers are just learning about life. And this play has a lot of adult living in two acts.

In the end, the kids handled it well, maturely, with an artistic approach and respect for each other. They showed a lot of talent and I was proud.

Still, could we do Oklahoma next year? It's got a girl who can't say no, a peddler selling chemicals you sniff to have wacky dreams, and several attempted murders. Talk about content! I'd love to bring the whole family and sing along.

Susan Konig is a Westchester resident and the author of Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (and other lies I tell my children) and I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family (St. Martin's Press). Visit susankonig.com.

 Susan Konig tackles the joys and frustrations (but mostly joys) of parenting in Westchester.