Meet Jason

At the audition he didn't do anything to impress us. He was the 11 year old boy who was too scared to speak loudly and seemed more interested in his shoe laces than much else but Shirnest and I agreed that he looked like he might be able to handle a large role so we gave him Gil, the young merboy who is heavily sought after by the other mermaids.
He struggled all week to learn his lines and even up till show day he couldn't seem to memorize them. We were a bit worried but he had come such a long way with projecting his voice and embracing his part as the young merboy in love that we weren't too upset with him. The day before the show we were informed by the principal of the school that Jason's dad was highly abusive to him and Jason was more or less a "door mat" (as the principal put it) for the kids at school to step on and ridicule. I got goosebumps when I learned this information and then suddenly it all made sense...the countless times he asked me how he was doing with his part and how his voice sounded (even though he didn't really sing), the way he would get embarrased when the other girls would say "HI GIL!" (his character's name) in their flirty teenage way on-stage and how every 5 seconds during the show when we were backstage he would ask me, "Did I do my lines right Chris?!?!"

After the show was over and we were packing up the set he came over to me with his mom and little brother a few steps behind and he just stared up at me with the brightest smile I have ever seen as though expecting me to say something...so I looked at him and said, "Do you have any idea how proud I am of you Jason?" He just giggled, gave me a extra hard high five and said, "I did it!"