Thank you for your voices...

I recently wrote a little play for my seventh grade drama class to perform for the school at the end of the year.  It's a great little play, I think, made greater by those budding actors bringing their souls into it.  It was an interesting day, the day I revealed their long awaited script to them, the students.  It took me a little longer than expected to present them the final product and, in all honesty, I wasn't sure they'd like it.  I read it to them at first, scene by scene.  Some approved, some disapproved.  We changed a word here and there, making it more appropriate for their generation.  Then I gave them their parts.  As I passed out their individual scripts and they began reading with their partners I experienced something unexpected and almost magical.  Can you imagine being surrounded all at once with your own words?  Things you thought up one rainy night, another collection of ideas that blazing afternoon last week, sentences labored over and then smoothed into something sweet, suddenly surrounding you in a room full of actors then making the words their own.  It was one of those climactic moments for me.  My voice in their minds and mouths, changing into something more beautiful because of the nuances each person brings to their individual performance.  It was something.  I can't wait to see what it turns into.  It's really inspiring to give something up to someone else so that they can make it theirs.