knew the sorrow had no end,
and I would fall upon this in regret,
for my unremembered Florida—the bald flamingos on the table lamps,
the days of suntanned childhood here I spent . . .
Today I went (remember this, as Florida), to school I went,
and I the public, I the scarecrow man,
to study, with the schoolchildren, how not a word they wept;
their bleeding throats perhaps too numb
to sing some song of student death,
another, call it, battle hymn,
an outlet song for our America;
Walt Whitman’s psalm within the night, by now so far recessed,
the earth itself absorbed their cries, the guns renew their threats.
And in mid-April, most of the original Broadway cast of Spring Awakening came down to Boca to meet with them for a master class. Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff, Gideon Glick, and half a dozen more flew in. Lilli Cooper was starring in SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway, so she FaceTimed. Lots of press appeared to capture it, and the New York Times led its arts section with a feature. The kids idolized these people, and Barclay was eager to bring not only joy to their lives, but wisdom as well. These actors had navigated the peril of dark material: how to take the character to the dark place, without getting lost there yourself.
Both generations warmed up together. Then the pros took seats near the stage to watch them rehearse. They left a few rows open to give them a little breathing room. Phoebe Strole, who played Anna on Broadway, sobbed. She praised their vulnerability during the feedback period. “I can see in your faces and on your bodies what we felt as well when we were first doing the show,” she said. “It’s like taking your heart out of your chest and shoving it at us.”
Volume was still an issue, though. Gideon Glick, who played Ernst on Broadway, told them they had to be louder. “I don’t want to be a Jewish mother,” he added apologetically.
“Please Jewish-mother them,” Barclay said.
They wanted help with the vulnerability without discussing the source directly. Cameron was his usual silly self through most of the rehearsal, but tensed up when someone asked a question headed that way. “We want to talk less about the shooting,” he said.
The kids were generally delirious. Alfonso called the actors “his celebrity crushes and dreams.” But awe came at a price. He had to simulate masturbation a few rows away from them, big and bold, projecting way beyond them to the empty back rows. The Times described him as “ashen” when he was done.
That was nothing, Barclay said. Wait till opening night: “Simulating sex in front of their moms and dads. It’s different than getting up there for a March for Your Life speech talking about gun control.”
“It was so uncomfortable,” Cameron’s mom said. “I kept my eyes directly on the ground. I didn’t want them seeing me with my head turned. My husband had purchased the seats and in his mind front row was a great idea, but in this context, Cameron does not want to see his mother in the front row. He didn’t say that, but it was pretty obvious. I was five shades of purple, super proud.”
The show sold out both nights, so they added two more. They went on without Alfonso. The previous weekend, he had had a tough choice to make. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner—when would they get an invite like that again? Seemed like an opportunity for the movement—and a desperately needed break. But it meant missing tech rehearsals. Cameron stayed, Alfonso went, and lost his place in the show. Alex Wind, an understudy and one of the MFOL leaders, took his place.
Opening night, most of the MFOL kids came to support Cameron, Sawyer, Alex, and all the other Douglas kids taking this on. And they were having a blast. They were scattered about the audience in little clusters, searching each other out at intermission, snickering over “The Bitch of Living,” and “My Junk,” and their friends miming masturbation. They were making plans for the prom, three nights away. During intermission, there was a mild commotion midway back in the audience. Dozens of kids were leaning in toward one magnetic figure, hidden inside a hoodie pulled up over her head, arms flailing, miming some frenetic scenario. David was beside her, giggling uncontrollably. Finally, the hood dropped back just enough to reveal a wispy little butterfly of a young woman. Emma, of course.
But not everyone was responding the same. Dylan Baierlein, perpetually silly and able to