Sandy Nelson admired the walls backstage at Kearsarge Regional High School, covered with signatures and notes from past students showcasing the theater productions they participated in.
Nelson, the theater director, ran her hands over a section featuring all the productions she’s been responsible for. Over her 15 years with the school’s theater department, she has strived to create a safe space for all students to express themselves and be vulnerable.
The wall is just one tradition that welcomes everyone to theater.
“Kids will have a really bad day one day — that doesn’t mean tomorrow will be bad. So, if they come in, usually rehearsal is a safe place,” she said.
Nelson plans to retire at the end of the school year.
Last Wednesday, most of the auditorium’s royal blue seats sat vacant as a chorus class met in the corner of the room. Countless plays, musicals, events and young students have made their way through the space under Nelson’s guidance.
“Each student has left something with me that I will take with me,” she said.
In the early years of her life, Nelson, who spent part of her childhood in New Hampshire, was unaware she would become a teacher at the high school she attended. She did not know what she wanted to do at all.
Her mother was a theater director, writer and producer in Columbia, Maryland, raising Nelson with a love for Broadway musicals.
During her sophomore year, her mom became the theater director at Kearsarge, which allowed Nelson to get involved with the technical side of productions and planted a seed of interest in being on stage.
“I wanted to perform because then I felt comfortable with the people I was with,” she said.
At first, she saw theater as a simple hobby and didn’t expect her love for it to expand past the walls of Kearsarge.
She initially enrolled at Keene State as a business management major and changed course multiple times. After college, she joined the army in 1992, hoping for a sense of routine and stability, as well as a way to pay for her education.
Her path led her back to Kearsarge, where she was hired as a social studies teacher in 2005 and has been the director of the theater department for 15 years.
In that time, she has created a space open for anyone and everyone. She’s prioritized, especially, breaking down preconceived notions that some have towards theater.
“I just want to end that,” she said. “You’re a mountain biking guy? You’re a Nordic guy? Get up on stage.”
Junior Layla Morgan, who has participated in student theater for the past three years, finds Mrs. Nelson’s ability to create an inclusive space quite remarkable.
“She has shed many tears with us, laughed with us, messed up with us, and tied us all back together,” Morgan shared in an email with the Monitor. “I could not have asked for someone better to hold my hand and lead me through the journey of immersing myself in Kearsarge Actors Guild.”
Nelson puts on an average of four productions each year, but within the past two semesters, she has managed to organize six.
While many shows go up each year under Nelson’s guidance, she makes sure her students are well cared for while also honoring her vision of the show.
She has also created an award ceremony, the Kearsarge Actor’s Guild Awards, that honor students committed to theater and a dinner theater every two years with catering provided by the school’s culinary program.
As an Army veteran herself, she has also organized a Veteran’s Day breakfast at the school every year.
Chris Geraghty, a fellow social studies teacher at Kearsarge, admires how Nelson goes the extra mile to care for her students.
“She takes the extra time to make sure that her students understand that she cares about them and is dedicated to helping them learn,” he said.
With her deep connections to school alumni, she has kept track of her older students and even invited them back to present current students with awards.
Nelson makes it a habit to bond with her students as early as possible. Once seniors graduate every year, she begins making connections with the incoming freshmen.
“Theater is an emotional place. You kind of have to be vulnerable when you’re on stage and vulnerable when you’re with kids,” she said.
For certain productions, she has brought up middle and elementary school students to fill in roles and be a part of the show, widening the Kearsarge theater community and beginning to guide students even before their high school careers begin.
Nelson’s students especially appreciate her for her dedication.
“As much as Mrs. Nelson does not personally enjoy an audience listening to her monologues, she can easily gain control of a room,” Morgan said, “not because of aggression or force, but because she has earned the respect of every single student in her productions.”
Geraghty says he has learned from Nelson and benefited from her commitment to the school.
“Our whole community will miss her positive mentorship of students upon her retirement,” he said.
After her retirement, Nelson plans to move to Arizona with her husband. Whenever people ask her if she intends to teach anywhere else, she tells them ‘no’.
“They aren’t Kearsarge kids, I want to be with these kids,” she said.
This article has been updated to reflect the year Nelson entered the U.S. Army.
