How many of you would like to be adults, out on your own?” Les Hinderyckx asks the row of beaming high school graduates on stage. Eight hands shoot into the air in response during the Theatre and Interpretation Center’s “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.”

Of course, he adds, adults have to “clean the sink strainer, plunge out the toilet…”

One by one, the graduates squirm in their seats.

“Wipe runny noses, bury dead pets when they get run over in the street…” adds actress Helen Ashley.

More raised hands go down. Disgusted glances are exchanged. When the lights dim, the graduates have raced off the stage. “The fact is, membership in a community depends on our willingness to do these chores,” Hinderyckx says to the audience.

“Being an adult is dirty work, but someone has to do it,” he sings with Ashley.

Robert Fulgham’s tongue-in-cheek vision of the perfect high school graduation speech is one of many vignettes that make up “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.”

Northwestern alumnus Ernest Zulia adapted the play from Fulgham’s best-selling book of the same name.

“When I read (Fulgham’s book) in grad school I thought it was wonderfully funny,” said Communication Prof. Rives Collins, the play’s director, “but I learned there was wisdom in it as well.”

The musical illustrates the idea that the really important things in life are learned as young children — sharing, cleaning up your own messes and flushing the toilet, for starters.

The play’s ensemble includes undergraduates, a Continuing Studies student and Les Hinderyckx, a Communication professor who will retire in the spring after teaching at NU since 1964.

“I was hoping at this rite of passage in (Hinderyckx’s) life that he could be part of the show,” Collins said, “and he said, ‘yes.’ That’s also one of the themes of the play — saying ‘yes’ whenever we can.”

Hinderyckx, whose NU debut was in a summer theater show in 1964, said he appreciates the play’s emphasis on the entire group of actors, not a few stars.

“It’s a great feeling to work in an ensemble,” he said, citing Collins’ directorial approach of incorporating the stage crew into the community of the show.

Since the play is told in a series of first-person anecdotes, actors had to focus on bringing themselves to their roles.

“In this show, who you’re playing on stage is a heightened version of who you are,” said ensemble member Lauren Robinson, a Communication senior. “You’re a lot more vulnerable if someone says they didn’t like you.”

Robinson’s fellow ensemble member Communication senior Tracy Wholf said she appreciated how straightforward the show was.

“It’s so simplistic, but that makes it beautiful,” she said.

This simplicity was reinforced by the short three week rehearsal period, according to assistant director Erica Schwartz.

“A lot of times when rehearsing for a show you can do things too many times. We didn’t have that problem,” the Communication senior said.

“There was never a lull in that process. And for us, the focus was on the truth of the work, working on how to be true to the stories.”

Collins said the play stresses “reflecting light into dark places,” but also acknowledges the serious parts of life.

“People expecting a kiddie play will be surprised.”nyou