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How the Hunchback helped me travel back to sanctuary

Student community theatre company stageGR’s production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” reminded me of all the ways theatre was—and still is—the best place for a teenager to be.

The Hunchback (front row, center, played by Jack Reeves) and his gargoyles. Image credit People Picture Company, courtesy stageGR.

I admit it; no, strike that, I’m proud of it: theatre was an important part of my tween and teen years. Both community and school theatre programs had me in all sorts of roles—from a prisoner to Pink Lady #3 to—my personal favorite—Kate, the provocative girl in “David and Lisa,” a role so outside my reality (yes, I was not only in theatre; I was also a goody-two-shoes) that I relished it.

Mind you: I didn’t want to be like Kate off the stage. I was a young teen, still nervous about all these changes, still nervous about boys. But so much of growing up, so much of those awkward tween-to-teen years, is figuring out who you are: trying on new skins, feeling out styles, personalities, and perspectives. Theatre gave me a place to safely do that, to put on a persona and walk around in it a while, to experiment without the consequences of “real life.”

As I had the opportunity to sit in the audience at opening night with stageGR’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” playing through the weekend at Calvin College’s Gezon Auditorium, I got whisked back to those glory days and reminded of the huge benefit that providing theatre opportunities for young people really creates.

Beyond trying on different personas, there is always—in any youth theatre group—the chance to be around different people. In my high school theatre, you’d find the geeks, the choir nerds, the jocks, and then somehow, the cutest boy in school. My most significant crushes throughout my formative years were boys I shared the stage with.

Esmeralda (Gabrielle Rabon) enchants all the men in Paris. Image credit People Picture Company, courtesy stageGR.

So, too, has stageGR created a safe space where all are welcome, where a rainbow of personalities spend time together. Somehow, they got more than one of the cutest boys in the school characters, but maybe that’s because the production, with 49 high school students all counting, hail from 19 different school settings. Students who wouldn’t otherwise interact—even if they were attending the same school—are getting really vulnerable and at the same time getting to show off their talents.

For stageGR, one notable talent was Quasimoto, played by Jack Reeves, a junior at City High. He alone would make the trip down the Beltline worth attending, though the production holds many more stellar moments and characters. Circle, Actors’, Civic, and Broadway itself: don’t forget that name. I’m not kidding.

The story does not shy away from themes of civil rights for “gypsies” (the word used in the play, though I hesitate to repeat it), love and lust, abuse of religious power, and believing in yourself when others treat you like a monster—they’re hefty concepts to pull off at a young age. But they’re also subjects that our teens are grappling with, whether we give them the tools to do so or not.

Not only does theatre, when done right, create a space where young people can explore who they are, get comfortable with people different than themselves, but it also creates a space where actors and audience alike can safely ask those bigger questions, even if we can’t find satisfactory answers to them.

Just a few of the 49 students in the cast of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with stageGR. Image credit People Picture Company, courtesy stageGR.

“At its cruelest, it’s still the only world we’ve got,” the students sang at the close of their musical. They’re not wrong. Giving them tools to deal with the realities of life is truly a gift. Theatre, in those awkward, painful years of trying to figure out how to be a grownup, is a safe haven or, as this weekend’s musical production calls it, “sanctuary.”

The family of volunteers at stageGR, judging from this performance, are doing theatre for young people right—and building up some incredible talent along the way.

Of course there are plenty of wonderful places to experience theatre in Grand Rapids with polished, highly experienced adult actors without leaving our city limits. But there’s also something golden about being reminded of the glories (and struggles) of our youth, remembering how theatre provided a little sanctuary along the way—and continues to help us navigate our world today.

stageGR presents The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Friday, April 27 at 7 p.m.
Saturday, April 28 at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7 p.m.
Performances at Gezon Auditorium
on the Calvin College campus
Tickets $5–12 available here.
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