Our week in the theater is over and done. The shows went well. There were standing ovations, laughs, some tears and we all had fun with the two dogs who played Sandy. My kids have come a long, long way since their first show with this group. Now, every time they step on stage I see a little bit more confidence, a little more ‘pluck’ if you will.
The Teen’s ‘Rooster’ was probably the funniest role I’ve seen him in. I SO wish I had a video of Easy Street.
The Girl as a dancing ‘feather duster’ looked really good on stage. She knew her dance routine and really seemed to have fun with it.
Sadly, they’ve tightened up the rules backstage and photos were not allowed. I captured these two before anything was going on but that is ALL I captured. I’ve been watching Facebook to see if anyone has posted anything that I could grab but no. So far, I don’t see anything.
I love to work backstage. I work with props and getting them to the performers can sometimes be a challenge but there is never a dull moment. Here are some highlights:
- The critical, very important locket that Annie wears broke and flew off at some point on stage and an eagle-eyed performer, kept his eye on it and managed to retrieve it even though a good 100 kids were kicking it around on stage.
- Getting a suitcase to Annie at the end is easy, but not when there is a very large set piece in front of the stairs that you had clear access to only a moment ago. We suddenly become acrobats trying to get to where we need to be.
- When the feather dusters from the other cast entered the stage without their feather dusters even though I asked them TWICE if they had them.
- When the little shoe shine boy came out to collect his shoe shine kit and then asked me “What’s a shoe shine boy?”
- Having only a moment to set some props down during a blackout and then tripping over a piece of furniture and realizing that any second the lights will come back up and you still have the props in your hand and are not even close to where you need to be.
- When you stand in the wings to retrieve something left on stage, you typically get an actor’s attention and they slide it off to you when they can. But this kid KICKED a metal bucket all the way across the stage. My heart stopped.
I was trying to figure out how many shows the kids have done with this group and although my count is probably missing a show or two, The Teen has done more than a dozen musicals not counting the ones he’s done through school and The Girl has done five.
Next up, The Sound of Music (hopefully) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels where The Teen will play Freddy Benson.
Track practice was cancelled this week so we are all catching up on sleep and trying to get ourselves back to normal. Eating on the fly takes its toll too. I finally cooked a meal last night and it felt so good.
Tonight, one errand to run but I can handle it. Hope you all have a good week. Reviews will be coming soon. I’ve read the books, now I just need to sit down to write about ’em.
Book Chatter 