MARK THOMAS DEMING: SENIORS STAGE ARTISTS IN THE ROUND >>>

Kids these days.

What’s the world coming to?

Used to be that on your last day of high school you went to a party, got drunk and did stupid things. Then you spent the next year, or two years, or four years, or (as in my case) several years, getting drunk and doing stupid things. Then you got a job.

But Natalie Archer and Kaitlyn Lloyd, who graduate from SOTA Monday, decided to stage Round 6 of the Tacoma Artists in the Round series instead. Taking place at Urban Grace Church, the show featured seven SOTA songwriters and musicians, artist Jovita Austin and slam poet Gwendolyn Faye. Oh yeah, and The Nightgowns.

The Nightgowns!

It was a sobering experience, I tell you. 

I found myself wishing I’d been a kid like these SOTA kids. I wished I’d been that smart and talented when I was a teen. I wished I’d gone to SOTA. I wished there’d been a SOTA. 

I wished The Nightgowns had headlined my senior party.

The show was not without problems. The lighting was bad. Gwendolyn Faye was good, but the 40-something poet didn’t fit with the other performers. Also, it was hard to appreciate the superb technique of Austin, who was perched in an overhead baptismal fount like Juliette on her balcony.

After the round, I watched about half of The Nightgown’s expectedly solid set. Then, feeling like the old guy, I left the kids to their fun and bright futures.

Do they still do yearbooks?

Stay cool. You’re awesome. Don’t ever change.