Emma Lee

An Open Letter to School Districts: Where Is the Money for Performing Arts?

There is no drama class at Cypress High School. The couch with wheels featured in black and white pictures of past productions still sits in the green room, a tiny space adjacent to the theater and choir room. The stage that is barely raised off of the ground and somehow runs at an odd diagonal line still knows the feeling of its heavy black curtains sweeping to a close at the end of school. A giant, opening-and-closing door that was used in some odd production of Legally Blonde decades ago is resting in a storage room a few feet away. Yes, there is no drama class at Cypress High School, but the theater is still filled with the magic and sparkle of performance.