Okay, I just choked on my chocolate covered pretzels!
Megan, it does sound like the guy is a bit of a putz. But here's another positive spin to put on it:
Sometimes I think that a show that is TOO SIMPLE is at least better than one that is TOO HARD. I think it's worse when choreography etc is so ambitious that you can see a cast struggling with it...having to concentrate on it TOO much. Acting is supposed to look EASY....that's part of the illusion!
So....better than the audience walking out saying, "Those poor kids really tried, it was just a hard play!" is the audience walking out saying, "WOW, those kids were great....they are capable of so much more!"
(am I trying too hard to spin this for ya?!
)
Well, at this point all you can do is try to figure out how to make lemonade out of the lemons you've been handed. I was in a production of "Oklahoma" where, at the big theme song finale, instead of some great choreography or at least interesting movements, the director had us....you guessed it....standing in the ole second grade "half-circle" for the whole thing!
And THEN kept telling us how boring we looked! ??? Well, DUH, it WAS boring! The person next to me, and I, mostly out of boredom and aggravation, really started hamming it up with the gestures and arm movements, and gazing into one another's eyes. Instead of getting corrected, we got commended
, and the whole cast eventually started playing around with the song and having fun with it too, instead of just standing there feeling frustrated and dumb. It was still a stupidly static way to sing an incredibly dynamic song, but at least we tried to bring as much energy and interest to it as we could!