Teens discover family connection

SANDPOINT — All the clues were there, but it took a trip to Sandpoint to put the pieces together.

Last weekend, John Carter and Michael Morrow — two friends who attend Chicago High School for the Arts — were about to hop on a plane to attend the British-American Youth Festival Theatre workshops being held at Sandpoint Charter High School this summer when a flurry of texts and phone calls cast them into the same family.

“My mom wanted to know who I was riding with to BAYFEST, because she wanted to contact his mom,” said Michael.

After the women visited for a few minutes, some uncanny connections began to take shape. Turns out, Michael’s dad, who passed away a few years ago, was John’s long lost uncle who had left the fold years earlier after a painful falling out.

“There was a big, old family feud and he ran away,” John said. “Later on, my mom found out he was in the Air Force. She said they left on a bad note. Every time she told the story, she cried.”

Confused yet? Not nearly as much as these two young actors were when their phones lit up with messages from both family camps, announcing that they had suddenly gone from classmates to kin.

There were signs all around them, such as the way their eyes crinkled into half moons when either of them smiled, or the shared passion for being onstage. They’d even laughed about how Michael’s odd-shaped big toe looked exactly like that of his friend’s brother.

“I can look at Michael and see traits of my older brothers,” John said.

“Same with him,” said Michael. “And there are all these other things we have in common, like we both act, sing and draw.”

John’s mother had, at one point, suspected the two might be related and asked her son to drop a few family names to see if they rang a bell.

“I never did,” he said. “I mean, who wants to be like, ‘Hey, yo — you want to be cousins?’”

Once the moms met up, however, the genealogical connection was made. Michael got a text from his sister confirming the link. He then texted John to pass the news along. John was in the middle of sending a note back when his phone rang.

“I was about to write, ‘OK, whatever — are you sure?’ when my mom called and told me, ‘That boy’s your cousin!’ ” he said.

Suddenly, a friendship based on a shared love of acting was catapulted into something much bigger.

“It’s so crazy how close we already were and didn’t even know we had the same blood running through our veins,” John said during a break between acting warm-ups with BAYFEST director Robert Shampain and a vocal workshop with instructor Andrea Lyman. “I can’t wait ‘til we go back, because I want to teach him some of the stuff that helped me get noticed and win competitions.”

At 16, Michael welcomes the chance to learn from his older friend — make that cousin — who, at 17, is about to enter the first class of graduating seniors from “Chi-Arts.”

“He’s the best actor in the school,” Michael said. “I remember one time I was waiting offstage to do an audition — I had sweaty palms and I was shaking. These big linebacker hands landed on my shoulders and he was like, ‘You got this, man. You got this.’”

John, who considers Michael “a natural talent,” looks forward to keeping up that supportive role as he shares his skills in character development, improvisation and the secrets of learning your lines quickly.

“When I get back to Chicago, it’s going to be cool,” he said. “I always wanted to have somebody else in the family who’s in the theater.”

“And now I can look across the halls at school and say, ‘Hey, that’s my cousin!’” Michael said.

Through Aug. 15, the two young Chicagoans will join 14 other students who traveled to BAYFEST from London and Hertfordshire, England, Toronto, Baltimore and Los Angeles, and rural locations including Sun Prairie, Wisc., and Sandpoint.

“One reason BAYFEST has held its summer intensives in so many diverse communities over the years grows out of the belief that our way of bringing young people from diverse backgrounds together is something that can and should be replicated whenever and wherever possible,” said Shampain, who founded the program in 1990. “By meeting with as many local groups and individuals as possible during the course of our programs, we hope to ‘spread the wealth’ and get people to see the extraordinary level of commitment and ability that young people can show, when really challenged to do so.”

The workshops run six days a week in seven- hour blocks that alternate between classes with the director, Lyman and professional actor and mime Sam Gold, interspersed with rehearsals for a schedule of free performances the actors will present at several public venues around the community.

John and Michael are accustomed to working hard at their craft, since classes at Chi-Arts start at 8 a.m. and run straight through until 5 p.m., usually followed by rehearsals that go well into the evening.

Wary, at first, of attending classes at the arts school, Michael now is grateful that his mother pushed him in that direction.

“I’m happy she did that,” he said. “I appreciate her for that.”

“I’m thankful for my mom, too,” John said. “She put me in a position where I’m out of the mindset of being on the street, running around late and doing nothing with my life. Now I’m in a conservatory where you spend hours every day working on your acting — I love it.”

The BAYFEST actors can be seen in free performances on Aug. 5 during the Festival at Sandpoint children’s concert, on Aug. 11 at 1 p.m. and Aug. 12 at 11 a.m. at the POAC Arts and Crafts Fair at Sandpoint City Beach, and again on Aug. 12 at Ivano’s del Lago restaurant in Hope at 2 p.m.

For more information visit: www.BAYFESTyouthTheatre.org