The Afterglow of Milo's Show

I wish I could go back in time and speak to the child version of myself to get a sense of him, who he is, without him knowing who I am, that I’m who he will become.  

This is what lingered in my mind in the days after seeing Milo Cramer’s brilliant collection of musical portraits of children, and their picture of the very flawed educational system in New York City, directed with a delightful precision by Morgan Green.

When Playwrights Horizons’ artistic director Adam Greenfield told me about Milo’s then-upcoming show, School Pictures, I knew I wanted to see it. I also presumptuously sensed from the sound of the show, and what Milo was doing, that they were a kindred artistic spirit. It was a solo opera. The last show of mine that I performed in New York City was a solo musical, We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time, and in the past I’ve fantasized about doing a solo piece revolving around the inner worlds of young people. I even had a title for this non-existent show, The Secret Lives of Children.

What was holding me back was the reality that, as much as I was captivated and fascinated, and a little intimidated, by children, I didn’t really know any. I’ve eavesdropped on some children, certainly observed some from a distance, but, as an adult, have actually only ever met a few, one-on-one, and then mostly just for a matter of minutes.

The exception to this being, about ten years ago, when I was approached by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone of the company 600 Highwaymen to write songs for their show Employee of the Year. The cast was five 9-year-old girls. I remember at the start of working on the show, sitting with the cast and feeling as though I was a visitor from another planet. I tried to compose the songs by imagining what would resonate for each girl, in keeping with Abby and Michael’s story they were telling. It was intuitive more than based on knowledge or any firsthand experience of what actually goes on in a young person’s mind. (Employee of the Year will always be one of my favorite artistic experiences.)

In contrast, Milo has an intimate knowledge, from five years of experience as a private tutor for children.

Watching School Pictures, I found myself marveling at how Milo could sustain a show that was almost completely sung, simply accompanying themselves on a single instrument, without the show ever losing its vocal and musical freshness or becoming repetitive. They make it look so easy, but I know firsthand that it is not easy. And the relaxed preciseness of Milo’s supple singing that they make look effortless, is also a long way from easy.

There’s an endearing, mischievous twinkle in Milo’s eye as they perform that suggests that adult Milo may be at the wheel but the kid version of Milo is definitely sitting in the passenger seat. Again, I’m being presumptuous, but I would imagine their young students would pick up on that, and the lines of communication would be open from the start. And obviously Milo is an extraordinary, empathic, and perceptive tutor, in spite of moments of self-doubt, and the occasional descending into, “I need this job, what do I have to do to keep it.” Teaching is an art form. The right comment coming from a teacher at the right moment can change the course of a child’s life. Seeing the right theatrical event at the right moment can also change the course of a person’s life.

A thought that’s been on my mind a lot over the last few years is the reality that there are people who could have become great artists but they never had the means to even begin to explore that part of their nature, let alone develop it. It wasn’t any kind of option, so any potential remained dormant, untapped, unrealized.

The children Milo was tutoring do come from rarified worlds. Certainly not a lot of parents or families have the means to give their child this potential advantage. And a repeated refrain in Milo’s show addresses this.

My own relationship to education was chaotic. I went to one of the top public schools in England, what would in the U.S. be a private school. I had to pass an examination to be accepted. I took it on my own, and it was a shock to everyone that I passed and got in. The majority of the pupils came from wealthy backgrounds. The school prided itself on the enormous percentage of its students ending up going to the most prestigious educational institutions, Oxford and Cambridge University. It groomed kids for that destination. Coming from a working/middle class background and a rough industrial hometown, Luton, to this London adjacent school, was definitely a fish-out-of-water experience, which I didn’t respond well to. I was ultimately thrown out of the school after I failed my O-Levels, (basically the equivalent of SATs), and then went to a local Luton school to try and retake them, which didn’t work either. The students there came from families that were not financially wealthy at all. A few made it to university, but quite a large percentage ended up like I did, in mundane jobs, in my case working in a warehouse loading trucks. 

The world is still so largely set up, or rigged, in favor of the rich. “Them that’s got shall get/Them that’s not shall lose” as Billie Holiday sang.

As I walked from the theater to the subway, I wondered how my life would have been different if I’d had a tutor like Milo helping me. 

And then I went back to bathing in the afterglow of Milo’s sharply insightful, audience-bonding evening, and the affectionate way they brought these children musically to life.    

Walking out of Milo’s show, I became aware that my cheeks felt a slight ache from either my constant grinning, or my laughing out loud, during their performance.

What a welcome ache in these most challenging times.

David Cale is the writer/performer of ten solo works, most recently his solo musical memoir We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time (in collaboration with composer Matthew Dean Marsh). At Playwrights Horizons he wrote, co-composed, and performed in the musical Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky, and in his solo play, Lillian. Photo by Albie Mitchell.