Overheard at the Support Group for Tall Kids Cast as Dads in High School Plays

Dave, 6’1”

“I always fancied myself a Romeo. But I hit my growth spurt at the end of eighth grade, which meant one thing: Lord Montague. I wanted to portray young love; instead I watched my wife die of grief onstage in act five. I’ve never even been on a real date.”

Jason, 6’4”

“You all know how Reverend Shaw in Footloose loses his son on prom night, causing him to outlaw dancing in the town? That was a lot to portray at 16. I’ve never had a son. But I’ve mourned one.”

Toby, 5’11”

“My first kiss was a stage kiss, and I’ll be honest, that messes with you. In The Music Man, Jr., I played Charlie Cowell, anvil salesman, who is so underdeveloped as a character we don’t know if he is a dad. Marian the Librarian gives him a kiss to keep him from catching his train to turn in Harold Hill. So my first kiss was not only a stage kiss, but within the world of the play, it was fake, too. That sucks double.”

Charlie, 6’2”

“Why couldn’t we have done High School Musical like all the seniors wanted? I’m just not sure why I spent two months, while I was trying to plan my 16th birthday, memorizing lines to diagnose the immorality of a town as Reverend Hale in The Crucible. Is that something a teenager should be doing with their nights and weekends?”

Phillip, 6’0”

“Brigadoon: Dad. Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: Dad. Children of Eden: God, the original Dad.”

Chuck, 6’2”

“I started getting facial hair when I was 13. Once the drama teacher saw, it meant one thing: Tevye. I wanted to be the Fiddler. I’ve been playing violin for five years. Instead, I was policing my daughters’ romantic lives, upholding religious traditions, and relocating my family in Imperial Russia. I stopped playing violin after that.”

Jayden, 6’1”

“When I was cast as Don Quixote, I couldn’t have been more excited: the lead in the spring musical! But on the third night, when I was putting on the old age makeup, I felt uneasy. One second I was a pimply 15-year old with a driver’s permit, the next I was a 70-year old man losing his mind. What happened to my lost years between 16 and 70? Was I losing my mind?”

Mitchell, 6’5”

“Audrey II isn’t a dad, he’s a human-eating alien. Since I was too tall to play opposite Ashley, who’s the lead in everything cause she took voices lessons with a Tony nominee, I had to play the plant. I don’t get seen on stage until the curtain call, and I got into acting for the attention. I felt like an alien.”

Tyrone, 6’0”

“I thought I’d be cast as a male orphan, running around the orphanage causing trouble with Annie. I didn’t realize I’d be Daddy Warbucks. It’s fun to play a character different than myself, but I don’t even have a checking account and the experience of adopting someone who was my chemistry lab partner was psychologically taxing.”

Tim, 5’11”

“Scrooge is a really complex character full of unfulfilled dreams, rage, and a bitterness that forms over many years of resentment. I’d been alive for 14 Christmases and believed in Santa for half of those when I played him. To embody a character who hates Christmas for 90% of the show, twice a week for two weeks, that’s a muscle memory I can’t shake.”

Steve, 5’10”

“There are no dads in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. So during my senior year, which should have been my chance to play a lead, I had to help out with tech. Tech.”