PINOCCHIO
"We emphasize giving equal value to each, not creating stars," Gail explains. "We've had the truly gifted, some of whom we've sent on to fame and glory. And that's good. But the majority who audition and join the conservatory at ARIEL aren't preparing themselves to become big names in professional theatre. They need to prepare to be good people leading good lives - and that's more important."
And it's something the right kind of theatre training encourages and builds, according to Gail Higginbotham, "With my own children - I've got five, and we have fostered others - plus the thousand or more that I've taught - I've learned the important difference between constructive and destructive thinking, between positive and negative attitudes. Positive choices bring a child a sense of being a person of value - and that value comes from inside. Negative choices reflect a child's scramble for identity and validation from outside. Positive choices spring from realizing we need to use the gifts we've been given to serve, enrich and ennoble other people. Positive choices come, too, from learning the power of deferred gratification. We live in a society that pretends to offer instant satisfaction for every need - where every problem can be solved in 30 minutes on a TV talk show."
Theatre, so often exploited as a glitzy ego trip even for the young, becomes for Gail Higginbotham and the ARIEL staff a powerful tool for making constructive choices. "Audiences are able see children not as headlines in sensational shooting and vandalism stories, but people capable of doing something beautiful, and disciplined and of value," Gail says. "And actors discover they can be such persons - if they have the commitment and discipline to make it happen."
The seeds of Gail's philosophy were planted before ARIEL was even a possibility - back when she was a rising young Southern California actress with ambitions of success in the West Coast theatre. Things took a surprise turn when she experienced what she would call a life-changing religious conversion - one that gave her a new perspective both on life and on theatre. "I'd been into theatre since I was two - never realized till much later that there were any people who didn't see the world as costumes, scenery, entrances and exits. None of that changed when I was on my way up in the Los Angeles theatre scene. But I put it all aside when I began to look at what mattered in life - and my husband and family became so central to that vision that I couldn't see that L.A.-style theatre had any connection."
A move to Salinas changed things. Gail's husband was posted to Fort Ord. Settled in their new home, Gail became aware of the need for exciting children's theatre in the Monterey Central Coast area. "With my four boys, I looked around and asked, ' Where are the 'Tom Sawyers' and the 'Toad of Toad Halls' to feed their imagination and make them fall in love with theatre?' An invitation to direct a show for her church first suggested the idea that Gail, with her strong theatre background, might be part of the answer to her own question. "The early plays were religious, but then we did PETER PAN. The head of the Gate Programs for the Alisal School District saw it and said, 'This needs to be seen by a lot of schools. If I got Sherwood Hall, could you do it?' "
Seeing Sherwood as being about as clear a possibility as the Radio City Music Hall, Gail just nodded and set to work packing up the props, scenery, cast and crew of a successful one-day church performance. "Two weeks later the same woman called me to say Sherwood Hall was booked for two performances the following Tuesday. When I sputtered out a protest, she just said, 'But you promised you'd do it.'" Phoning the fifty people involved reorganizing the set and clothes and mentally reblocking action to suit the big Sherwood Hall stage. This was a kind of baptism of fire for the stunned but resourceful Gail. And PAN is a technically tricky show involving wires and pulleys to fly Peter and his companions around the Darling bedroom and the Island of Lost Boys.
"We found a Navy Seal who was good with cables, but he was still up there in the flies rigging pulleys at curtain time opening night. I knew when I said to Wendy, 'Think wonderful thoughts and up you go!' - I was supposed to soar across the stage as Peter Pan. What was I going to do? Dance around from bed to bed? When I couldn't pause, ad lib or delay that flying cue any longer, I said it - and that Navy guy pulled on the wires and hand-over-handed me up - which left me swinging wildly, first out over the front rows, then crashing back into the upstage wall of the set. It was an adventure."
But an adventure that produced delight is what Gail was doing with school children - and a demand that she continue doing it under better conditions for more and more of them. "We did THE WIZARD OF OZ the following year - and added on schools with every production. We rehearsed in barns, warehouses, vets' hospitals, sports arenas and churches. For the decade before we finally moved in here, we were allowed to use the Salinas Women's Club."
ARIEL's annual flagship summer production - this year a revival of PETER PAN - continued playing to big audiences at Sherwood Hall - and will go on doing so, leaving the new Main Street site for more compact conservatory productions like this year's TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO and THE FABULOUS FABLE FACTORY.
The Wilson Children's Theatre is a work in progress, with an auditorium into which portable seating is still lugged and laid out for shows until permanent raked theatre seats can be installed. "Permanent theatre equipment like lighting booths and curtains have to wait until we have the walls plastered and the costume, rehearsal and other work spaces in place - and paid for," Gail explains. "The local community has given us such wonderful backing in the move to Main Street, Salinas. And they continue to support all we're doing to become a fully-equipped, up-to-the-minute theatre facility."
But ARIEL, like its founder, doesn't wait for perfect conditions. It adapts, presses on and learns from what's available - and leaves the next phase to prayer and fundraising. "We live in a society that hasn't got much experience of gritting it out," says Gail. "But at ARIEL, the conservatory teaches that nothing worthwhile comes without a big measure of hard, repetitive work. You don't spend the course just standing in a spotlight wearing beautiful costumes and fancy make-up. Without commitment and stick-to-it-iveness and a sense of having really achieved something, grease paint and spotlights are pretty shallow and meaningless pieces of equipment anyway."