English theater teacher retiring after 27 years

LYNN – When Lawrence Lowe takes his final bow in the finale of this weekend’s Musical Revue, the English High School theater teacher will be bringing down the curtain on a 27-year career with the Lynn Public School Department.”I saw my first show in this theater in 1956,” Lowe said while sitting on stage in the Lynn English auditorium Tuesday. “I can even tell you where I sat: second row, second seat in, in the balcony.”The show was “Peter Pan,” and Lowe was smitten when he saw the title character fly.”I had dreams about that for weeks,” he said.But it wasn’t until he was in the ninth grade and saw “My Fair Lady,” also in the English auditorium, that he decided “I have got to be a part of this.”He said he found a place at Emerson College, where he studied theatre education, and although he acted, he knew his place was behind the scenes, he said.After short stints of teaching several different subjects at several different schools, Lowe settled into his role in theater education as drama coach at English High School.”I love working with kids,” he said. “It’s been challenging and difficult at times.”Over the years, Lowe has tried to rotate doing musicals, classic plays, children’s plays and comedies so every student he has for four years gets to do one of each.He said he loved to do the children’s plays, which were always performed for the elementary school students, for two reasons. First, he said, it is sometimes the only time the younger students will be exposed to a live play and second because they make a great audience.”I tell the kids in the cast, this is the best audience you’ll ever get,” he said. “You’ll know if they’re with you and you’ll know if they’re not.”He said he always tells his students they are not in the business to be Broadway, they’re in the business of making memories – and Lowe has made thousands.There was a particular performance of “Sleeping Beauty” where Maleficent sparkled literally and figuratively and had the children mesmerized, he said. Twice his students have performed “The Great Cross Country Race,” the story of the tortoise and the hare and the children booed the hare so loudly he left the stage, Lowe said with a laugh.”It’s amazing to me that, each time we did it, the little kids in the auditorium so loved the tortoise and so hated the hare,” he said. “The kids would always chant ?Torto, Torto,’ with no cue. He was never called that in the play, but they all did it.”Not every play has been a winner, however. One year during drama festival, Lowe decided to do Brecht.Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, theatre director and Marxist – and not your typical high school fare.”We didn’t go on,” Lowe said. “The audience wasn’t ready for Brecht.”He attempted Brecht one other time but said his assistant ended up having to explain the play to parents during the intermission.When asked if it was a tough choice to retire, Lowe said no.”It’s time,” he said. “Things have changed.”He said one thing that struck him particularly is that many students no longer recognize actors from his era, and he doesn’t know their actors.”I don’t know their music, they don’t know mine, and it’s been getting worse,” he said. “The disconnect is difficult, and most of these kids have never seen a professional play.”He said both Salem State University and Endicott College have been great about letting the kids watch dress rehearsals, but that’s as close as many have gotten to a professional stage.When he first began teaching, Lowe said his theater students had stronger vocal backgrounds, often because they were involved in junior high school chorus or church choirs. But most of that is now gone, he said, explaining that students in middle schools today get eight weeks of music.”I have real issues with that,” he said. “Kids need to be exposed to the arts because its humanities and, after all, we are human.”He seems to have no regrets, however.During his career, Lowe has been more than a teacher. He has also been a couns