Before Opening Night, He Taught Us How to Fall

There are teachers you respect.
And then there are teachers who quietly hand you the keys to your own weirdness and say, “Drive.”
I had both.
Al Snider was my high school theater director from 1977 to 1980, and in those three years I performed in eight productions under his watchful eye. He taught us far more than how to memorize lines or hit our marks. We learned stagecraft, discipline, professionalism, and what it meant to take theater seriously.
We adored him.
So when he announced his retirement in 1980, just before my junior year, I was genuinely crushed. Al ran the department like a professional company. His standards were high, his expectations were clear, and there was no room for half-hearted effort. If you made it through his program, you didn’t just feel prepared, you were prepared for real stages, real lights, and real critics.
So when word came that a new director was stepping in, the theater kids did what dramatic teenagers do best.
We pre-judged him.
We made a pact, actually. We were going to make his life difficult. Think Little Rascals energy. The new-teacher episode where the kids plot chaos before the poor woman even learns their names.
The first show our new director cast was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which was a smart move to his credit. It was a small production with only six characters, a minimal set, and the kind of character-driven storytelling that leaves nowhere to hide as an actor. When the cast list went up and I saw my name next to Charlie Brown, I felt equal parts thrilled and suspicious. This was a new director. None of us knew what we were in for yet.
Not long after casting, he invited the six of us to his apartment for the read-through and casually mentioned that he would cook dinner. Today that invitation might raise a few eyebrows, but in 1980 it felt perfectly theatrical, almost glamorous. So we piled into my dad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass and drove to Lakewood, buzzing with curiosity.
He lived on the thirty-seventh floor of a high-rise overlooking Lake Erie. For a bunch of suburban theater kids, it felt impossibly sophisticated. When the elevator doors opened, we stepped into a hallway that already seemed more adult than anything we were used to, and by the time he swung open the apartment door with enormous enthusiasm, we had the distinct feeling that we were entering a completely different world.
Art Thomas was a character from the start. When he spoke, his eyes widened dramatically, his hands carved shapes through the air, and he often gazed off to the side mid-sentence as if addressing an invisible audience only he could see.

Before we could even take off our coats, he announced that he couldn’t wait for us to see his brand-new 8-by-12 oriental rug. He described it with such pride and buildup that we expected something fit for a palace.
So imagine our confusion when we walked into the living room and spotted it immediately.
There, in the center of this enormous space, sat an oriental rug that was indeed eight by twelve… inches. It looked less like a statement piece and more like a very confident placemat.
We all glanced at one another without saying a word, but the silent consensus was unmistakable: this was going to be an interesting year.
Before dinner, he guided us to a table where six identically wrapped boxes were waiting. Inside each one was a brand-new Radio Shack tape recorder, already loaded with batteries and a fresh cassette. Then he explained our assignment with complete seriousness.
One at a time, we were to go into his bedroom, close the door, press record, and scream as loudly and as long as we possibly could.
There was no explanation. No warm-up. No theatrical metaphor offered in advance.
Since I was playing Charlie Brown, I was sent in first.
I remember stepping into that bedroom, quickly clocking an assortment of curious decorations, swallowing hard, and wondering what exactly I had signed up for. Then I took a deep breath, pressed record, and screamed with everything I had. It was long, loud, and probably a little operatic. When I finished, I rewound the tape, returned to the living room, and the next actor went in. One by one, we surrendered our vocal cords to the experiment.
Afterward, we sat down to a genuinely lovely vegetable lasagna while his player piano filled the apartment with music, because naturally this man owned a player piano. Just when we thought the evening had reached its peak of delightful oddity, he clapped his hands together after dessert and announced he had one more surprise.
We were told to grab our tape recorders and follow him.
He led us out onto the balcony where the Cleveland skyline glittered below and Lake Erie stretched wide and dark beside it. Thirty-seven floors is high enough to remind anyone that gravity is very real.
He looked at us with unusual seriousness and asked, “Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if you jumped off a balcony?”
We froze.
Before anyone could attempt a sensible reply, he pressed play on his own recorder. A piercing scream shattered the night air — and then, without hesitation, he tossed the machine over the railing.
We leaned forward instinctively, listening as the scream grew fainter and fainter until it ended in a distant, decisive crunch in the parking lot below.
In that moment, we understood two things very clearly: this man was completely unhinged… and we were absolutely going along for the ride.
I stepped up next. I pressed play, heard my own terrified voice burst into the open air, and with a surprisingly calm motion, sent it sailing over the balcony. We listened as my scream tumbled thirty-seven floors to its dramatic conclusion.
One by one, the rest of the cast followed.
Without realizing it, we weren’t just throwing tape recorders into the night. We were tossing over our assumptions about what a director should be, what rehearsals were supposed to feel like, and what theater itself could allow.
We finished the read-through that evening slightly stunned but intensely awake. From that point forward, every rehearsal carried an element of surprise. He pushed us toward risk, toward instinct, toward play.
Our previous director had taught us discipline.
This one taught us freedom.
And the truth is, you need both. Structure builds the stage, but permission is what gives you the courage to step onto it.
Every once in a while, if you’re lucky, someone enters your life and quietly rearranges your understanding of how things are supposed to be. They may not look conventional. They may not even appear particularly sane. But they crack something open inside you that never quite closes again.
So I’ll leave you with this:
When you leave yourself open to madmen, sometimes great things can happen.