Why We Tell the Story

Today has been surprisingly emotional for me. Tonight the 3rd Annual Syd Riggs Scholarship Benefit Concert happened in Utah, and I wasn't there. I wasn't there last year either, but for some reason it's hitting me harder this year...maybe because I feel like I need Syd's guidance a little more now that life is a little less stable for me. So since I can't be there to pay tribute I'm going to do it here.

Syd Riggs was my high school theater teacher and she changed the lives of so many students, including me. She could be grumpy, mean, indifferent, elitist, and down-right scary. But she never settled for less than your best, she never stopped teaching you how to do better, and she never stopped believing that you could be everything you ever hoped and more.

I participated in every musical, multiple theater classes, and several extra productions with Syd throughout high school, so I spent a lot of time with her. But when I think about Syd, two memories stand out. The first was while I was still in high school. I was in the drama room after school with some friends sitting at the piano and singing songs. Two Sophomores from her beginning drama class came in to ask her a question--something about turning in an assignment late or missing a class or something like that. She scolded them and raised her voice almost to the brink of yelling before finally (with obvious frustration) giving in to their demands and granting their request. They were obviously terrified as they made a quick exit. Then, just before the door closed behind them, she turned to us with a big grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye and said, "Was I scary enough?" I LOVED that moment! I had been terrified of Syd when I first met her and could definitely relate to those frightened students, but underneath her blustery exterior she was really soft-hearted and silly.

The next memory that stands out was a few years after I graduated. I was working in West Yellowstone, Montana, at the Playmill Theater in 2005. Syd had directed one of the shows we were performing. She'd been up there for rehearsals and then gone back to Utah for surgery on her ankle. After a few weeks of recovery she came back just before the show opened (or maybe it was just after...I'm not sure). Anyway, she was there over the weekend of the Tony's. Most of the cast watched them together in one of the rooms upstairs, but Syd was in a wheelchair from her surgery and couldn't get up there. So she and I and one or two other girls watched them in our apartment, which was on the ground floor. I'll never forget how excited she was about A Light in the Piazza. Every time it won an award she would giggle with delight. I still really need to see that show. :)

She died shortly after that visit from a blood clot related to her ankle surgery. And a few years later we started the benefit concerts to form a scholarship in her name for an Orem High School student to study theater in college.

I really like this quote from the scholarship's website. It really embodies the lessons learned from Syd.

The greatest legacy that Syd left for those who have known her, have known of her, or have simply been touched vicariously through those who did, was her passion for “telling the story” in whatever medium you choose, be it theater, music, poetry, education, or the way you live your life.

The idea of "telling the story" comes from a song from Once on This Island.

And the spirit of Ti Moune touched their hearts
And set them free to love

And she stands against the lightning and the thunder
And she shelters and protects us from above
And she fills us with the power and the wonder
Of her love

And this is why
We tell the story
Why we tell the story

If you listen very hard you hear her call us
To come share with her our laughter and our tears
And there's mysteries and miracles befall us
Through the years

We tell the story!

Life is why
We tell the story
Pain is why
We tell the story
Love is why
We tell the story
Grief is why
We tell the story
Hope is why
We tell the story
Faith is why
We tell the story
You are why
We tell the story
Why we tell the story

So I hope that you will tell this tale tomorrow
It will help your heart remember and relive
It will help you feel the anger and the sorrow
And forgive

For all the ones we leave
And we believe
Our lives become
The stories that we weave

We tell the story.

Syd truly helped make me who I am today. If she hadn't asked me to accompany West Side Story my Sophomore year AND believed that I could do it, I don't know where I'd be now. She gave me countless opportunities and had faith in me.

She helped me recognize that I had music inside me and that I could share it in an important way that would change lives.

And that is why I tell the story.