I had written this of Facebook, and a number of people suggested I share it here. So here goes:
I found out a few days ago that my high school drama teacher, Mr. Pesko, passed away this week. I had fallen out of contact with him, which is a shame, because I wonder if he knew that if it weren't for the school plays that he directed, I wouldn't have gone into theatre in college, and I wouldn't have spent the last 20 years of my life making a living in this business we call show.
Doing theatre in high school gave me confidence during my teenage years, and what teen doesn't struggle with that? He was one of the first adults to really take my theatrical opinions seriously. When I saw a PBS special about the 90s revival of Guys and Dolls, I fell in love with the songs and suggested it would make a good fall musical. The next year, we did it, and I even got cast in the role I wanted, Nicely Nicely Johnson.
I was always impressed with what Mr. Pesko could do with some cardboard and a hot glue gun. Our drama department was woefully underfunded (Aren't they all), but we had some of the most inventive cardboard sets you could imagine. Our "South Pacific" had an actual waterfall made from a garden hose and a painted tarp. And while many schools rent their Audrey IIs, Mr. Pesko built all four plants for our production of "Little Shop of Horrors". When Anna arrived in Siam in "The King and I", Mr. Pesko created a cardboard barge that sailed down the cafetorium aisle to the stage. From Sweetapple, Ohio in "Bye Bye Birdie" to Runyonland NYC in "Guys and Dolls", Mr. Pesko transformed a tiny stage with no fly space and hardly any lights into other worlds.
So thank you, Mr. Pesko, for kicking off a life in the theatre. I think that if any of you wanted to honor him, get in touch with your high school theatre teachers, or, barring that, the person who inspired you to follow the path you followed. Our journeys often lead us far away from each other, but there's always time to reach back and reach out.
