by
John Viscardi (Full disclosure – Again, I directed the play, so…yeah)

My favorite quote from John Cariani, the playwright of Almost, Maine, is a bit of advice he gives to all producing the play at the beginning of the hard copy. He talks about the tight rope the director and actors have to walk in making the play work. “Don’t telegraph”, he writes. “Keep the surprises alive, and…If you don’t succeed in this – then Almost, Maine will languish in corny sentimentality. And it will be bad. Because this play (and this is the part I love) is almost bad”. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty funny, as well as courageous to admit about your own play. But the point is: “corny” is tough in this day and age to pull off. And this play is about tender love in all its wonder, magic and heartache. And, that’s just not an easy sell in today’s culture.

 

Since it is now 2020 (Happy New Year!) and Jayme and I started York Prep in 1969, I was pondering on what has changed in education over these last 50 plus years. The answer is that so much has altered the way education is delivered today to high school students, along with changing attitudes about the value of such education, that any attempt to go into detail requires a book (which I do not have the qualifications or attention span to write). The other factor inhibiting a full study is that we are in the middle rather than the end of the effects of the changes that have occurred. Trying to make a statement about a process that is in the act of evolving, is not the most sensible. So, historically, some changes that have happened will have a permanent effect, while other changes that have happened may disappear and, in hindsight, be recognized as a temporary fad.