Historical Note on PARENTS
by Lynn Brennan Tabor

It was September 2000, and the 25th season for Cleveland San Jose Ballet was underway.  I was gearing up for another year of watching my husband coax dancers into the labyrinth of intricate choreography that makes up a grand scale production.  With budgets getting slashed yearly, we saw the ermine trim disappear from costume designs, and faced the realization that Chris would now have to work at lightening speed.  Alas, some of the contract weeks had disappeared like the fur on the costumes.

Nevertheless, it was a fall full of promise.  The studios were "humming" as usual, and one floor below the ballet the Dancing Wheels Company (dancers with and without disabilities) was in full swing as well.  Our wonderful son had just begun 10th grade in Cleveland Heights.  Life was as normal as it can be for a family whose sole income came from arts funding.  But we loved our life!

Late one evening after a particularly taxing day of rehearsal we got a call that the ballet board had unanimously decided to shut the company down.  That was it; in what seemed like a moment Chris had cleared out his desk, and our basement storage room was now home to a myriad of files labeled "Swan Lake", "Romeo and Juliet",  "Serenade"…past history…memories of blood, sweat and stage magic.  Chris' job, I mused, was as ephemeral as the art form. 

Crisp fall days turned to the inevitable frigid Cleveland winter.  Our prospects were a big question mark.  In my heart I didn't want Chris to be involved in the struggles of any more big ballet companies.  But that was what we had known for more than 20 years. 

One night I heard Chris playing piano up on the third floor of our eighty year old house, as he often did at the end of the day.  As the long winter wore on I noticed he was up there more and more, and I heard him singing too.  Such haunting, heartfelt melodies were sifting down to me.  Sometimes he'd come down to the first floor and I would notice there were tears in his eyes.  One night he came downstairs and sat on the couch and said "You'll never believe what these songs are about,  they're about Dancing Wheels, they're about the parents of the children in wheelchairs."  I looked at him and realized that from now on life would be different.  We were about to step onto an uncharted path; this was definitely going to be an adventure . . .

Fast forward to January 2003.   A guest stint teaching dance in Portland, Oregon proved fateful.  At a dinner party at the home of Chris' brother and sister-in-law  Chris played and sang all of the songs for their guests, and at
two a.m. it was unanimous among the group of friends that this story and these songs needed to heard by a bigger audience. In April Chris presented a one-man show of "Parents" to a very receptive audience at Oswego House in Lake Oswego, Oregon. 

Since then with the tremendous support of that core group:   Bill Howe, Joy Bottinelli, Ron and Nancy Powell and Gareth and Janet Tabor
"Parents" the play has taken shape. Staged readings at Lakewood Theatre in Lake Oswego
were presented in October 2003 to enthusiastic response.  The adventure continues, and it is thrilling that the message of "Parents" has traveled from that drafty attic in Cleveland to the hearts and minds of so many wonderful people.