Front Porch: ‘Old’ son feels disheartened, invigorated by stage choreography

I often write about getting older and all its aches and pains, insults and strange noises – and, sadly, some of the losses that come along with it.

But this time I’m writing about it as it affects my middle-aged son Sam, and what a revelation it has been for him. Not my aging, but his. And it kind of makes this mother smile.

He makes his living in the arts in Seattle. He directs and choreographs theatrical productions and sometimes still acts in them (mostly musicals). He teaches acting classes and is reviving a live theater-in-the -schools program called Storybook Theater. He creates and sells artwork, designsT-shirts for an upscale men’s store and otherwise is involved in all things artistic.

It’s hard to do just one thing and stay afloat financially if you want this kind of life. He works hard.

As his hairline is marching backwards, he’s noticed some other changes, as well. Recently he stopped in to observe a theater class being taught by a young man in his 20s, someone who had once been a student of Sam’s. One of the kids called out to the teacher of the class, “Hey, your dad’s here.”

Oof.

While it’s true age-wise that he could be the father of an adult child, it suddenly hit my son that he is now being seen in a whole new light. That of “older person.”

Firmly ensconced in his upper 40s, he’s finding that his body is speaking to him in ways it hasn’t heretofore. This is not a new revelation to any middle-aged person, but it’s finally new to him.

For example, he still takes roles that involve dancing. Never a formal dancer, he moves well enough on stage that he passes for a pretty good chorus dancer, even having appeared some years ago in a production in Seattle of “A Chorus Line.”

Currently he’s on stage in Reboot Theatre Company’s production of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” at Theatre Off Jackson in Seattle. Reboot gives new interpretations to established shows, often with revised casting. This particular production is described as an out-of-this-world version that takes Cole Porter boldly where he’s never gone before.

There are robots and aliens and familiar sci-fi beings infused into the original cast. Sam plays a somewhat Mr. Spock-like character. Think of the show’s noted songs like “You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes” and “I Get a Kick Out of You” – but in outer space.

It’s a high-energy, dance-heavy production, including an eight-minute tap routine. He told me that at the dance audition, he kept up with the “kids” – the in-their-20s dancers, some even in their teens – but during breaks, when the young’uns were jumping around and joking around, he was gasping for air off in the wings and nursing the pings of muscles, tendons and ligaments he’d forgotten he had.

But those body parts hadn’t forgotten to remind him that they are still there … and are no longer kids either.

“Damn, I’m an old dancer,” he said. “It’s disheartening and invigorating all at the same time.”

When he works as a choreographer, he shows the dancers when and what to do, then he steps back and lets them do it. “So much better on my muscles and joints,” he observed.

“Can I execute the choreography better than a kid in the back row? Yes,” he said. “Can that kid run the number 20 times in rehearsal and not break a sweat, while I need oxygen and medical intervention? Also, yes.”

When he tells me these things, I do also hear the joy in his voice, but – since we’re talking on the phone – what he doesn’t see is the smile spreading across my face.

Old? Oh, wait, my young puppy. It’s all relative, and this relative assures you that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

There are creaks and aches and challenges to come in a couple of decades, when, hopefully, you’re still moving about on the knees and hips that God issued you at birth … and those joints will really have obscene things to say to you.

You’ll see.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.